Books

A Girl Like That

  • Jan 18, 2021
  • Tanaz Bhathena
  • 401 responses.

A Girl Like That A timeless exploration of high stakes romance self discovery and the lengths we go to love and be loved Sixteen year old Zarin Wadia is many things a bright and vivacious student an orphan a risk

  • Title: A Girl Like That
  • Author: Tanaz Bhathena
  • ISBN: 9780374305444
  • Page: 343
  • Format: Hardcover

    • A timeless exploration of high stakes romance, self discovery, and the lengths we go to love and be loved Sixteen year old Zarin Wadia is many things a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a risk taker She s also the kind of girl that parents warn their kids to stay away from a troublemaker whose many romances are the subject of endless gossip at school You don A timeless exploration of high stakes romance, self discovery, and the lengths we go to love and be loved Sixteen year old Zarin Wadia is many things a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a risk taker She s also the kind of girl that parents warn their kids to stay away from a troublemaker whose many romances are the subject of endless gossip at school You don t want to get involved with a girl like that, they say So how is it that eighteen year old Porus Dumasia has only ever had eyes for her And how did Zarin and Porus end up dead in a car together, crashed on the side of a highway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia When the religious police arrive on the scene, everything everyone thought they knew about Zarin is questioned And as her story is pieced together, told through multiple perspectives, it becomes clear that she was far than just a girl like that This beautifully written debut novel from Tanaz Bhathena reveals a rich and wonderful new world to readers It tackles complicated issues of race, identity, class, and religion, and paints a portrait of teenage ambition, angst, and alienation that feels both inventive and universal.

    • [PDF] A Girl Like That | by ↠ Tanaz Bhathena
      343 Tanaz Bhathena
    A Girl Like That

    About "Tanaz Bhathena"

    1. Tanaz Bhathena

      Tanaz Bhathena was born in Mumbai and raised in Riyadh, Jeddah and Toronto Her short stories have appeared in various journals, including Blackbird, Witness and Room Magazine A Girl Like That is her first novelTE I don t use frequently please feel free to connect with me through my website.

    401 Comments

    1. This is not a feel good book, and Zarin is not your happy go lucky heroine.It is fantastically refreshing to be reading a YA contemporary story that is not set in North America Instead, the reader is heading to Saudi Arabia to meet the controversial Zarin who is than she appears to be Zarin has had a tough life Her father was a criminal and her mother died when she was still a child Living with her aunt, who abuses her physically, and her aunt s husband, who only sometimes defends her, she does [...]

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    2. Phew That was a book that required 100% of my attention It wasn t an easy read for me, but definitely a worthwhile one I feel like this story is really important and will stay with me for a long time.

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    3. A GIRL LIKE THAT completely blew me away, but be warned this book will break your heart a thousand times, so that by the time you re done reading, a thousand and one little heart pieces will be thrumming in your chest cavity like tiny, weeping hummingbirds Abuse Death Rape culture Religion Bullying Mental health Cultural norms There is so much heaviness in this book, but Tanaz writes about it all with such profound honesty and depth that although you re forced to confront the ugly terribleness o [...]

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    4. A Girl Like That completely broke my heart in a million ways, some expected and others not I was not prepared for the sheer beauty of this writing, which coupled with the plot tore me to pieces yet also left me with a profound sense of hope Every sentence is so carefully constructed, but at the same time, everything feels effortless and smooth I don t think it s a stretch to say that Tanaz s writing is of the most elegant I ve ever read in YA You will love some of these characters You will hate [...]

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    6. WOW Not that I wasn t expecting the book to be really good, but it was justally good in ways I wasn t expecting There s so much interesting discussion of cultural nuance re India and the Middle East and being an expat and mental health and sexism and different religions that rarely get rep in YA I had incorrectly assumed the main character would be Muslim she is in fact Zoroastrian and then on top of that you get the whole BEFORE I FALL IF I STAY conceit and a book that stands up there with some [...]

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    7. I had the privilege of reading A GIRL LIKE THAT in advance of its 2018 release date, and I was completely enraptured by its beauty and power The story starts with the aftermath of a car accident that kills that two main characters, Zarin and Porus It s certainly not a traditional beginning to a story, but that just adds to the uniqueness of this book there s literally nothing else like it out there Different perspectives from Zarin, Porus, and other people in their lives unravel the events leadi [...]

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    8. STOP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING AND READ A GIRL LIKE THAT by Tanaz Bhathena This is one of the most important works of fiction I have ever read right up there with THE FAULT IN OUR STARS in its depth, complexity and powerful beauty I sat down to read a few pages of this incredible book and tore through the story in one sitting A GIRL LIKE THAT is told from the alternative points of view of a group of teens living in Saudi Arabia The teens are of a variety of ethnicities and religious affiliations [...]

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    9. Sometimes, life does not go the way we want it to and we can t really change that But it doesn t matter as long as we have someone to love us Love is important than anything else in this world And you deserve love just as much as anyone else Here s what you should know about Tanaz Bhathena s What We Left Behind It is heartbreaking This is a story about how love and its absence can shape a person s life, and it is a story framed with death It was tragic in a way that reminded me of Romeo and Jul [...]

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    10. This book is beautiful, jarring, unique, and incredibly written Jeddah comes alive amidst the threaded perspectives some of which span even from beyond death As the characters lives weave together and darken, and the tension and dread build, this book cracked my heart into a bunch of little pieces Bhathena doesn t shy away from uncomfortable scenes, characters, and questions, and that s what to me makes this book so important I couldn t put the story down, even as sadness welled up in me, as I g [...]

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    11. 2.5 stars.It is unfortunate that I did not end up liking this It was one of the books I was looking forward to being released this year The writing is what led to me not liking it The author was overly descriptive and I got bored with how descriptive the writing was It was of the author telling me things than showing A good novel has both showing and telling The characters were complex and the novel addressed a lot of things that don t normally get discussed I think it is great that this novel [...]

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    12. I have been looking forward to this book for over a year, and it left me just as emotionally devastated as I expected This is a heavy book, one that left me continuously having to remind myself that these people were not real and I should not be grieving them like they were but damn A beautiful, sad story about young love but also the terrible ways we box in both our girls and boys with adult insecurities around sex and honor One of those stories that will haunt me for a long time.

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    15. I wondered at the strategy of clearly stating our protagonist s ultimate outcome on page one, but never fear under the firm direction of our author, we are sucked in on page 1 and the ride to get to what happens on page 1 has us thrilled, tortured, and entranced from then on Set in Saudi Arabia and mostly at the prestigious Qala Academy, we understand very quickly, that the lives of all students are curtailed, but especially the girls, who are being raised to live lives where they will be define [...]

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    16. This book totally blew me away it s powerful, stars some of the most complex and well crafted characters in all of YA lit, and the prose is consistently breathtaking I ve seen another few comps to THE FAULT IN OUR STARS in other reviews, and I can totally see why those comparisons are being drawn this book tackles seriously tough topics in a sensitive and thoughtful way, while also managing to be engaging and compulsively readable This is an incredibly special book, one that I think has the powe [...]

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    17. Thought provoking story told from the moment the two main characters die which whoa I was not expecting since I hadn t read the blurb and then going back in time to tell how they got to this point.Zarin is fierce and mercilessly judged and failed by the girls boys and adults in her life A Girl Like That is an unflinching story of where religion culture, rape culture, misogyny, mental health crosspaths to a brutal conclusion.There are multiple pov s, in addition to Zarin and Porus They provide tr [...]

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    18. This debut was absolutely phenomenal You know that when a book starts out being narrated by two characters who have died, it s going to be something a little unusual and Bhathena s first novel did not disappoint A GIRL LIKE THAT has lingered with me almost a month after finishing it the characters, settings, and circumstances are so beautifully drawn that they become impossible to forget Bhathena examines her topics with grace, sensitivity, and nuance even the villain and very villainous he was [...]

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    20. My copy of the novel A Girl Like That was won in a giveaway I like to thank the publishers and sponsors for giving me the opportunity to read this novel Please note that I will not be summarizing the plot of the story in my review, but there will be spoilers Firstly, I d like to put out some trigger warnings this book contains depictions of drug use, including date rape drugs, non consensual sexual assault, and domestic child abuse Let s start with the good This is an incredibly well written sto [...]

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    21. Putting this down for now because I m 60 pages in and losing interest I ve only heard amazing things so I may pick this up again in the future, I think I m in the mood to read something else right now.

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    22. DNF I really don t appreciate it when a book that focuses so heavily on sexual assault r pe doesn t have any mention of that in the blurb.

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    24. This was so hard to read because of the topics and because most the book was just really boring There are multiple perspectives which I usually enjoy but I felt some weren t necessary Idk there s also something about how the book is structured that made it hard for me to read By the end of the book I finally started enjoying and connecting to the characters I need to think about this I ve only been hearing great things and I wanted to like this but I didn t.Review bit 2orllWf

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    25. What can I say about a novel that made me stop and breathe This was a novel that was immense than the pages that held its words It was a novel that threw out the punches over and over again, a fight that never seemed to disappear It was a novel that was hard to read yet one that was also hard to put down As the story unwinds, there seemed to be individuals with motives and those that were sincere and existed It wasn t too hard to tell them apart for most of them were open about their opinions I [...]

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    26. Me ha sorprendido para bien este libro Personajes complejos y muy bien construidos Incre ble la ambientaci n y toda la trama.

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    27. I received an ARC courtesy of Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.Reading increases the reader s capacity for empathy This book is one of the best examples of that I ve ever read Zarin is a beautiful orphan being raised begrudgingly by her abusive aunt and passive uncle Her relationship with boys earns her a very unfair reputation and she is bullied mercilessly at her school This novel is written from various points of view that slowly uncover the layers hidden beneath many characters Th [...]

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    28. Zarin Wadia is an outsider She s an Indian living in Saudi Arabia She s an orphan her mother was a dancer, her father a gangster Unlike the aunt and uncle who raised her, she s only half Parsi And she has a reputation Her peers are advised to say away from a girl like that This book is painful It begins with Zarin s death, her and someone named Porus After that time skips back, and through four different perspectives the narrative explains how Zarin and Porus arrived at this moment I knew from t [...]

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    29. TW sexual assault, animal death, child abuse.This is a book that will leave you feeling raw My heart ached basically the entire time I read this because I instantly fell in love with Zarin and I wanted only good things to happen to her, but, you know, right there in the synposis it tells you that she dies This is also one of those books where I don t really know how to put my thoughts into words other than IT WAS GOOD, READ IT NOW That happens rarely, but about halfway through I could tell this [...]

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    30. It s not giving anything away to say that Zarin Wadia, the girl like that at the heart of Tanaz Bhathena s gripping story, dies in a car accident in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, alongside her friend Porus Dumasia The narrative, told through multiple points of view, including Zarin s and Porus s, is in classic YA territory as classmates observe, judge, and gossip about Zarin s behavior absences from school, romances with boys, and worst of all her utter disregard for the opinions of others But what real [...]

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