Love from A to Z by S. K. Ali

Zayneb Malik, 18, is a Muslim American high school senior living in Indiana. She is part Pakistani, part Guyanese and Trinidadian, wears a hijab and has a teacher, Mr. Fencer, who delights in spinning his lessons to fit his Islamophobia.

Adam Chen, 18, is a Muslim convert from Doha, Qatar, born in Canada, he's part Chinese and part Finish. He's also university student in London. I should say, was a university student. He hasn't been attending classes for months now, instead staying in his dorm and making things, including a display box for his younger sister Hanna's rock collection.

The thing that these two strangers have in common, besides being devout Muslims, is that they both keep a Marvels and Oddities journal for recording the marvels and oddities in their lives.

Now, Zayneb is on her way to Doha for two weeks after being suspended from school for writing a "threatening note" about Mr. Fencer. And Adam is on his way home to Doha to explain to his father why he hasn't been attending classes. Naturally, they run into each other at the London airport and on the plane, but it's Adam who notices the name of Zayneb's journal. Still, all his plans to try to talk to her on the plane are to no avail.

So imagine Adam's surprise when he sees his fourth grade teacher (and his deceased mother's best friend) Ms. Raymond at the airport and discovers that she is Zayneb's Auntie Nandy. It's a small world, and Zayneb and Adam have one more thing in common, they are both keeping secrets - she hasn't told Auntie Nandy why she is in Doha, Adam hasn't told his family about his multiple sclerosis diagnosis, the same disease that his mother died from when he was a boy.

Attracted to each other from that first meeting in the London airport, their relationship is on a rocky road, but it is also a road filled with marvels and oddities.

In Saints and Misfits, S.K. Ali gave readers a look into the life of a young hijab-wearing Muslim woman, whose religion is very important to her, but who finds herself in a difficult position caused by one of the rising stars of her mosque. I had never read a book before Saints and Misfits that was so focused on the different aspects of being Muslim - not just within the family and mosque, but what life is like in the world at large. Needless to say, I learned a lot, and it is a great book to boot.

So I was really looking forward to reading S.K. Ali's second novel, Love from A to Z, and I was not disappointed. Readers get to know the two main characters through written alternating journal entries as they record the marvels and oddities they experience. And once again, Ali has given readers a strong, independently thinking Muslim character in Zayneb, but she's also a nicely flawed character, having some justifiable anger issues towards Islamophobes but needing to find a more productive way to deal with them. And Ali gives us some really disturbing examples of what a Muslim female who wears a hijab like Zayneb faces on a regular basis.

Adam has his own anger issues, but while the fact that he spends his time building things seems productive, it is also a way of not dealing with his illness. Adam is also a kind, gentle, religious man, and wonderful to his little sister. He isn't exposed to the kind of vitriolic attacks that Zayneb faces, only because his being Muslim isn't as obvious. Both Zayneb and Adam have loving, supportive, understanding families, which is a welcome change from the usual angsty families in YA, though Zayneb's mother would like her to be a little more low profile.

I particularly like that Ali takes her characters (and her readers) to Doha, a place where being Muslim isn't unusual but then shows readers that it, too, is not without prejudice. For example, when Zayneb goes swimming in the pool where her aunt lives wearing a burkini, she is forced out when a resident objects.

And once again, Ali has written a YA novel, a real love story, that has sent me to Google a number of times, not the least of which was to find the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and the manuscript called The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of Existence that had inspired their journals and which Adam takes Zayneb to see. It's there and if you ever visit Doha, you can see it, too.

Reading Love from A to Z is a true learning experience wrapped up in a eminently readable, richly textured love story and I can't recommend this book highly enough.

This book is recommended for readers age 13+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley

The Fault in our Stars by John Green

**Contains Possible Spoilers**

It would seem that writing a book about a girl with terminal cancer would be a terribly depressing story.  But if you write a coming of age book about a girl with terminal cancer who falls in love despite having terminal cancer, then you have a book that is...a love story.  And that is exactly what The Fault in Our Stars is - a love story, and it is a 5 star love story.

Should the fact that the two lovers are teens with cancer make a difference?  No, not really.  Love is, after all, blind.  Hazel Grace Lancaster is 16, she has been battling terminal thyroid cancer since she was 13.  Hazel is living on an experimental drug that has generously granted her more time to live, albeit with a constant need for oxygen.  Where Hazel goes, so goes her oxygen tanks.

By contrast, Augustus 'Gus' Waters is 17, a former basketball star, who claims to be in remission minus one leg he has already lost to osteosarcoma.  The two teens meet at the local Cancer Children's Support Group and are instantly attracted to each other.

But you know from the start, there is no where any romance can go.  Its fate is not written in the stars, however, but in the cancer Hazel and Gus each carry inside themselves.  This is not a spoiler, just a fact.  Or is it?

As a kid who has cancer and who has fallen in love, Green's portrayal of Hazel is completely realistic, totally spot on.  Hazel is straightforward, witty and down to earth, in other words, she calls it like she sees it.  When she says that depression is not a side effect of cancer, it is a side effect of dying, I know this remark to be true.  That is the same kind of thing my niece said about her cancer when she was a teen (happily, she survived).

So Hazel does not kid herself about the future, there are no maybes, no what ifs, no could bes.  And it is with this knowledge that the romance between Hazel and Gus plays out and is at the heart of the book.  She knows there is only today, tomorrow isn't guaranteed, and so they try to have the best romance they can for as long as it lasts.

Gus is fun and appears to be strong, but he is very afraid that he will not be remembered when he dies.  When Hazel gives him her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, about a girl dying of cancer that ends in mid-sentence, he becomes as obsessed with it as Hazel is.  Hazel has contacted the author, a J D Salinger type of recluse living in Amsterdam, asking, begging him to answer her questions about what happens to the characters after the book ends.  But the author ignores her letters, denying her the comfort of knowing life will go on for those who love her after she is gone.   Then, Gus tells Hazel that the "Genies," the group who grants wishes to terminally ill kids, has allowed his wish to be given to her (she has already used her wish on a trip to Disney World) and they journey together to Amsterdam seeking answers from the author.  Which they do not find there.  But the trip proves to be the high point of their romance.

And in the end, it is their romance that makes the difference in everything.

I found much of the book to be interesting.  There is lots of humor, as there always is in the midst of sadness, illness or tragedy.  Hazel has a sharp, dry wit, that I liked very much.  I didn't feel the support group was as useful as it should have been, but the fact that Hazel, Gus and their friend Issac became each other's support was, for me, more realistic.  Hazel's parents are the kind of really good parents who never get mad or even annoyed at her, and who let her do things that most terminally ill teens would not have been allowed to do and that was not realistic to me.  They were too good to be true; worry and frustration would have brought them to the end of their tether at least once in a while.

The author character was simply a cruel self indulgent drunk, which I suspect can be true, but I thought he added a sad comment in this book.  Was his need to create the mysterious reclusive author myth about himself more important than indulging a dying girls wish?  The love story could have gone just as well even if he told Hazel what happened the the characters in his book.

Would I recommend The Fault in Our Stars?  Definitely, despite a few flaws it is a book about courage, determination and love, and those three things make reading it worth it.

This book is recommended for readers age 14+
This book was purchased for my personal library