Author: Khan, Sabina
Interest age: from c 14 years
Published on 1 September 2022 by Scholastic in the United Kingdom.
Paperback | 320 pages
128 x 199 x 24 | 242g
A novel in two acts - told eighteen years apart - gives
voice to both mother (Ayesha) and daughter (Mira) after an unplanned
teen pregnancy led Ayesha to place Mira up for adoption.
Coming to the US to study, Ayesha is swept up in a whirlwind romance
with Suresh - an Indian boy who reminds her of home.
Mere months away from starting university, she falls pregnant and
finds herself alone. She makes the difficult decision to hide her
pregnancy and put her daughter up for adoption, before returning
to India.
Years later, seventeen-year-old Mira Fuller-Jensen has had a comfortable
childhood but has never felt quite like she fit in their
majority white community. All she knows is that her mums adopted
her when she was born and that her biological mother was a student
who went back to India. When she comes across letters addressed
to her from her birth mother, she sees a way to finally capture
that feeling of belonging.
Her mother writes that if Mira can forgive her for having to give
her up, she should find a way to travel to India for her eighteenth
birthday and meet her. Mira knows she'll always regret it
if she doesn't go. But is she actually ready for what she will learn?
Perfect for fans of Sabina Khan's other books Zara Hossain
is Here and The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali
Deals with relatable teen issues and portrays the intersection
of teen pregnancy with Muslim and Indian culture
Compelling dual perspectives - Ayesha is brave and loving,
Mira is curious but lost and both make engaging narrators