What begins as a story about a freshman girl looking for validation through a boyfriend, ends up being a multi-layered coming-of-age story looking at what it means to be your authentic self, figuring things out as a teenager, and doing this all with a mixed heritage. Parvin has an American mother and Iranian father, and this novel thoughtfully looks at what it means to straddle two worlds as a teenager in America. Frankly, all teenagers are trying to understand who they are and who they want to be, but this narrative layers on that extra complexity which not everyone has to sort through.

All that may sound heavy, but this is actually a fun book with plentiful humor. The author has brilliantly given Parvin a vibrant personality which flows on the pages in a stream-of-consciousness manner from Parvin; this puts the reader right in the middle of her emotions and thoughts–and Parvin is funny. It reads like a smart rom-com movie and should appeal to fans of that genre or any reader who is trying to figure things out for themselves and would love to empathize with a great character as they do it.

Hot tip: The award-winning audiobook version is quite enjoyable.

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language: 13 religious exclamations; 4 mild obscenities; 2 derogatory names; 1 anatomical term.

Violence/Gore: Characters bump/collide resulting in mildly injured nose.

Sex/Nudity: Characters of all gender combinations (boy-girl; girl-girl; boy-boy) hold hands; boy and girl kiss; girl and girl kiss; references to coming out as gay; discussions/reference to being pangender and about a character coming out to their parent; flirting; innuendo; many discussions and thinking about liking others romantically (all gender combinations); one of the major theme of the books is a female character trying to get a boyfriend/homecoming date; gay and pangender characters/topics.

Mature Subject Matter:

Ethnic and racial discrimination; gender identity; deportation.

Alcohol and Drug Use:

None noted