The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar
Synopsis
"When Nishat comes out to her parents, they say she can be anyone she wants—as long as she isn’t herself. Because Muslim girls aren’t lesbians. Nishat doesn’t want to hide who she is, but she also doesn’t want to lose her relationship with her family. And her life only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life.
Flávia is beautiful and charismatic and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat choose to do henna, even though Flávia is appropriating Nishat’s culture. Amidst sabotage and school stress, their lives get more tangled—but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush on Flávia, and realizes there might be more to her than she realized."
My Thoughts
This was a really cute book with some complicated characters and I adored it! Two girls who most definitely have a crush on each other, start rival henna businesses. As you can imagine, drama ensues.
In this book, no one was all good or bad. The protagonist, Nishat, is the victim of bullying, public outing, and racism. She is rightfully angry about these things throughout most of the book. However, she has some moments of supremely poor judgement and acts in ways that are objectively wrong. In other words, she's a realistic teenager but her actions are challenged and called out in the book. I also appreciated that beyond the protagonist, Jaigirdar made the antagonists and other characters in this book three-dimensional humans as well. Usually, there's more behind the actions of bullies than meets the eye and I felt that this book tackled that in a real way that also didn't excuse their behavior either.
“She’s inching forward. Is there a heterosexual explanation for why she’s inching forward?”
― Adiba Jaigirdar, The Henna Wars
This book was complicated and messy at times, but I ended up really loving the growth of these characters and watching the relationship of Nishat and Flávia flourish. Definitely recommend this one!
Genre: lgbtqia+, contemporary, ya
Representation: lesbian MC, bi MC, BIPOC MCs
Content Warnings: racism, cultural appropriation, homophobia, public outing