Hardcover, 384 pages
Release Date: May 7, 2024
Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Read from: April 22- May 8, 2024
Stand-alone
Source: Texas Library Association Conference
Content Warning: Homophobia, Racism, Grief, Racial Slurs, Bullying, Toxic Relationship
For Readers Interested In: Reading Freely, DEIA, Social Justice, Racial/Ethnic Diversity, Family Diversity, YAFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Internment comes a timely and gripping social-suspense novel about book banning, activism, and standing up for what you believe.
After her dad abruptly abandons her family and her mom moves them a million miles from their Chicago home, Noor Khan is forced to start the last quarter of her senior year at a new school, away from everything and everyone she knows and loves. Reeling from being uprooted and deserted, Noor is certain the key to survival is to keep her head down and make it to graduation. But things aren’t so simple. At school, Noor discovers hundreds of books have been labeled “obscene” or “pornographic” and are being removed from the library in accordance with a new school board policy. Even worse, virtually all the banned books are by queer and BIPOC authors. Noor can’t sit back and do nothing, because that goes against everything she believes in, but challenging the status quo just might put a target on her back. Can she effect change by speaking up? Or will small-town politics—and small-town love—be her downfall?
*MY THOUGHTS*
I can say with all honesty, that it is going to be one of the greatest joys of my career to get more teens to read this book. If I have to go and put this in the hand of EVERY TEEN EVER, I will most definitely will do that. This made my heart hammer the entire time and I’m just their local public librarian. I can’t imagine the way this will make them feel since they have to deal with this nonsense everyday.
So one thing I wanted to say about this book is how relevant and timely it is. I am almost certain that this is going to be banned at some point somewhere. My biggest hope is that this book will make those trying to ban books see what they really seem like. I hope they can see that the teens don’t actually respect them and they don’t care to interact with them. I hope the people who are upset about this book have a child that loves this book.
I also loves that there’s so many different lessons in this book. Like I love that she found ol dude, but she had to find out on her own what was actually going on. I didn’t love that she found out the way she did, but I loved that she was open to learning. Most people would take that info and forget about it. But she took everything in stride. And even as a teen, with all these grown ass folk against her, she took everything in stride. I felt like a proud auntie!
The plot of this was…. too realistic for me. That’s the only thing I can think of to say. And it really hurt me because Lordt, like that librarian in the story, I bust my ass day and night to make sure we can get books like this in the hands of teens and I am truly scared for my job every time. Anyway, I am really curious as to how this book will look to those who are on the “other side.” Will they realize that they are weird? That they can’t co-parent everyone? I am very hopeful that at least one of them will come to a conclusion that they should stop. But we shall see. I hope this will be the beginning of some changes. (Otherwise they’re just going to freaking ban this just because its written by a person of color smh)
I have never been so ready to pass this out to teens in my life.I cannot wait to see what they’re going to think of it. And I really hope that they take something away from this book and become a Noor in their own way. They truly deserve to do so and be happy.
Overall, I give this
