If you read only one book this year, let it be Hana Khan Carries On. You’ve Got Mail set in two competing halal restaurants, Hana Khan is a sparkling, heartwarming, laugh-out-loud hilarious rom com that is an absolute pleasure to read. Hana is a podcaster and aspiring radio producer whose mom has run the Three Sisters Biryani Poutine in Golden Crescent, Scarborough for fifteen years. Aydin is an aspiring restauranteur with a wealthy, domineering father determined to make his mark with an upscale halal restaurant across the street.

Hana and Aydin’s banter is witty and clever — sparks practically fly off the page. From the very first page, where we meet them as anonymous podcaster AnaBGR and her first fan / avid commenter StanleyP, I was hooked, and I wanted more. Their enemies-to-lovers relationship stays prickly sweet throughout — you see how much they’re growing to care for each other, even as they can’t help their impulse to keep hurting each other’s business. Much like the equally prickly sweet rambutan, it’s a pleasure to see the sharp outer layers peel away, and reveal the soft squishy heart within.

Beyond the romance, Jalaluddin has created an entire world within Golden Crescent, populated by a cast of characters who have my heart. Foremost is Hana’s eighteen-year-old cousin Rashid, visiting from India and plunging headfirst into all the intrigues at Golden Crescent. A cheerful and mischievous Machiavelli whose family of accountants may or may not have ties to the New Delhi Mafia, Rashid stole the show when he joins Hana at the business owners’ association meeting, and enthusiastically joins in a drama confrontation, while of course cheekily confirming with his cousin that this was indeed the drama his cousin had warned him about. I love the way his story unfolded, and I would so very much love a spinoff novel all about him, please and thank you.

Then of course, there is Kawkab Khala, who is a force of nature, and just the badass mentor Hana needed. The story behind her being nicknamed after a cat is absolutely fantastic, and if Hana’s podcast were real, I would totally eat it all up. Both Hana and Aydin’s families are richly imagined, and revealed with so much depth and heart that I don’t know how Jalaluddin managed to keep it all contained within 300+ pages. I feel like I know these people, and feel very strongly about them and their futures, and all I can say is that I very much invite you to get to know them as well. Even the side characters are drawn with spare but vivid strokes; I would totally be down to reading more about Hana’s friends Yusuf and Lily, and Aydin’s friend Zulfa. And the imam, who barely appeared at all — I won’t say anything more, but a scene featuring a pink Hawaiian shirt with two flamingoes almost made me cry.

Being a hijab-wearing Muslim woman like Hana unfortunately comes with its share of racism. I am blown away by the breadth and depth of Jalaluddin’s handling of this aspect of Hana’s life. In Hana’s boss Marisa, we see how microaggressions operate in the workplace, from people who mean well but seem to not realize — and not care to realize — how their words and actions hurt. In Hana’s co-worker Thomas, we see how some Brown people attempt to assimilate, and how much they may need to sacrifice in order to do so. 

And then there’s an incident of racist violence that leads into a whole series of even more racist hate crimes. There are so many ways an author can choose to handle this kind of content, and I should note that many of them are equally valid, but I am downright awestruck with the mastery and skill that Jalaluddin displayed in these chapters. She incorporates such depth of nuance, and such a broad diversity of responses within Hana’s community — from the combination of street smarts and naivete in Rashid’s response as someone who didn’t grow up in North America, to the combination of privileged outrage and weary apprehension in Hana and Aydin’s responses as young adults who did; from the more mature caution of Hana’s older sister and brother-in-law who carry more years of experience than Hana and Aydin do, to the completely different views of Hana’s mother, whose experiences of racism as an immigrant have shaped a completely different worldview.

Hana captures it well when she says that on one hand, her immigrant parents did experience racism to a much worse extent, but on the other, those experiences have conditioned them to accept less than what Hana and her sister are willing to live with. These chapters are just all so incredibly rich and textured, and yet handled with such a light and delicate touch that Jalaluddin manages to maintain the rom com feel. As a reader, all I can say is that I feel the need to sit with these chapters, perhaps read them again later on. I don’t know if I can ever fully absorb or express the thoughts and feelings they inspire, but all the kudos and admiration to Uzma Jalaluddin for her ability to put all of this on the page.

Hana Khan Carries On was just an absolute joy to read. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and by the end of the book, it filled me with joy. How much do I love that scene at the Golden Crescent festival? I love Hana, I love Aydin, and I love so many of the wonderful people Jalaluddin has brought to life. This book is by far the best one I have read all year, and I urge all of you: do yourself a favour and read it for yourself.

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This book comes to me courtesy of Another Story Bookshop and a gift card from Penguin Random House Canada, which I won at an online contest to celebrate independent bookstores and the important work they do. In gratitude for this opportunity to read such a wonderful story as Hana Khan, I invite you to check out this map that Penguin Random House Canada has compiled of independent bookstores across Canada. Find your local indie and show it some love!

Popular high school kid Griffin is dead, and Clara’s sister Emily has been arrested for murder. Only Clara knows why Emily may have hated Griffin enough to kill him, and it’s all because of something Clara told her.

What Happened that Night is an intense, at times disturbing, book, and I’m glad the author was thoughtful enough to give a trigger warning and list of supports at the beginning. The novel alternates between timelines: before Griffin was murdered, and four months after Emily was arrested. 

I like how Cameron takes us into Clara’s mind. We see her struggle to return to some semblance of normalcy, and her alienation from her peers as she realizes most of them have already moved on. There’s a scene where she notices that the school has reassigned Emily’s locker to someone else that didn’t really dwell on the moment, but I found her reaction really moving. 

While there is a mystery component to the book — what really happened on the night of Griffin’s murder? — it was more the kind of mystery that somewhat unfolded alongside Clara’s emotional journey through both timelines, rather than a mystery that the characters actively solve. There is a ‘detective’ character in the form of the girl who inherits Emily’s locker, who also happens to be an aspiring journalist interested in the case. There are some clues dropped about disturbing events from Griffin’s past, and other clues dropped in conversations with other characters.

But ultimately, this is a story about Clara, and how she grapples with her relationships to significant people in her life. Griffin’s death totally upends her life, but so does the event she believes to be the cause, and so too does the things she learns as the mystery unravels. I like how her character grows over the story, and how she ends up reclaiming her life by the end. She’s been through a lot, but Cameron uses just a light enough touch that the story remains captivating and entertaining despite some dark topics.

Content Warnings: The novel includes at least one graphic (though not gratuitous) scene of rape, mentions of other instances of violence (including rape, murder, and one instance of animal mutilation that thankfully is light on details). There are also a few incidents of stalking and verbal abuse. 

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Thank you to Wattpad Books for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack is an evocative, beautifully written novel that invites the reader to fall under its spell. It follows the lives of two pairs of children — best friends Gareth and Jack, and twins Clara and Blanca — and their families. It begins with Jack’s fall from a tree at age six, an accident that fills Gareth with guilt, causes Jack to lose an eye, and lets Gareth’s mom know that her other son Tristan has actually been blind in one eye since birth. A visit to Jack’s mother Hilda’s workplace introduces the boys to Clara and Blanca, who are albino, and whose mom lives in a psychiatric facility. The boys are taken by Clara and Blanca’s unusual looks, and so the story expands into their growth into adulthood, and the ways in which the children’s lives intersect with various people in their lives. The story takes us from Ontario to Berlin, where Hilda grew up, and through the lens of visual art, photography, film, and music, delves deep into metaphors around ways of seeing, and the differences between sight and vision.

The author writes beautifully. I don’t think I’ve appreciated eyes as much as I did while reading about Siegfried’s craft as an ocularist, and I love how part of Jack’s character growth is shown through a decision to get a David Bowie-esque glass eye that doesn’t match his biological one. I also like how Tristan develops a love for film because the camera lens is also monocular, and how he finds inspiration in filmmakers with partial blindness. Gareth is a bit of an emo blowhard, but his character also feels realistic and complex.

The characters’ and the narration’s fascination with the Clara and Blanca’s albinism rubbed me the wrong way at times. Gareth and Jack often described them as fairies, and as beautiful in an otherworldly way, and both of them become obsessed with capturing the twins’ beauty through their art. I admit this is realistic, and I can imagine boys, especially younger boys and teenagers, thinking this way, but coupled with the author’s beautifully poetic narration, the way characters spoke of the twins’ beauty felt fetishistic at times, and just gave me an icky feeling as I read. Part of that, I think, stems from the girls being portrayed as a unit through much of their childhood (“the twins” rather than individual personalities), which added to this sense of them as objects of someone else’s gaze rather than subjects in their own right.

That being said, I love how the author transitioned the narrative’s treatment of Clara and Blanca as their character arcs progressed. The scene where the twins debuted their singing to the public in a competition made me cheer because of how awesome they were. Having grown up either fetishized or insulted for their albinism, they decide to play up their looks to establish their brand — appearing on-stage in all white with only red lipstick for colour, they declare their musical duo’s name as Bleach. It’s a “hell yeah!” kind of moment, and part of that may stem from my own frustration as a reader with how much other characters tend to objectify them. I also love how the twins’ characters progressed from there, with Clara and Blanca each revealing more of their differences from each other. The author does a good job in showing how other characters’ assumptions about each twin’s personality end up being proven wrong.

As much as I love how the twins grew into themselves as they neared adulthood, I found that the book’s final chapters seemed to drag. The sense of magic and wonder from the earlier chapters seemed to have dissipated — I’m not sure if that was an artistic decision to show the characters’ shift in perspective, or not, but while the parts of the book captivated me, I found myself skimming the last few chapters.

Overall, it’s a good book, and beautifully written. Von Palleske weaves together so many disparate themes, motifs, and metaphors, that it’s impressive how tightly woven the final novel turns out to be. TW: rape (from a family member), suicide, abuse.

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Thank you to Dundurn Press for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.