Opinions of a Wolf

In this Bangladeshi-Irish YA romance, Hani needs to convince her two best friends that she’s really bisexual. She lies and tells them she’s dating academically focused and acerbic Ishu who agrees to fake date in exchange for help being elected Head Girl.

Summary:
Everyone likes Humaira “Hani” Khan—she’s easy going and one of the most popular girls at school. But when she comes out to her friends as bisexual, they invalidate her identity, saying she can’t be bi if she’s only dated guys. Panicked, Hani blurts out that she’s in a relationship…with a girl her friends absolutely hate—Ishita “Ishu” Dey. Ishu is the complete opposite of Hani. She’s an academic overachiever who hopes that becoming head girl will set her on the right track for college. But Ishita agrees to help Hani, if Hani will help her become more popular so that she stands a chance of being elected head girl.

Despite their mutually beneficial pact, they start developing real feelings for each other. But relationships are complicated, and some people will do anything to stop two Bengali girls from achieving happily ever after.

Review:
I have a soft spot for Irish literature, and when I heard about this book by a Bangladeshi-Irish queer Muslim author with a bisexual main character, it landed on my tbr list very quickly. This was a quick read with an easy to follow story and a sweet, very low spice romance.

I enjoyed Hani and Ishu each separately as character. They take turns narrating in the first person, and I never lost track of who was speaking. This book uses the grumpy/sweet trope quite well. Ishu is only grumpy because she’s focused and willing to speak her mind. Hani quickly sees through that. Hani and Ishu’s cultures are intertwined beautifully in the book. I like it when a book doesn’t feel the need to stop and explain cultural things to the reader. It’s on us to look it up if we want to, and that’s when I really learn things. (Like when Hani makes Ishu porota for breakfast. I looked that up right away. Yum!)

As a bisexual person, I appreciated how the story highlights the specific issues for Hani in coming out as bisexual. It’s clear that her friends would have fairly rapidly accepted her as a lesbian, but they view bisexual as being either confused or attention-seeking. They also don’t believe her because they’ve never seen her date a girl. This is a very realistic depiction of biphobia. Hani is quite confident about who she is and what labels she chooses. In contrast, Ishu is uninterested in labels, although she’s definitely attracted to Hani. It’s not clear if she’s only ever been interested in girls or more or if it’s just that Hani is the first person she’s ever been interested in. But that doesn’t matter to Ishu, and it doesn’t matter to Hani either.

When this book first came out, it was praised for depicting a queer Muslim character. (This article goes into depth about representation for South Asian queer women and interviews the author as well.) There is a perception that you cannot be both queer and Muslim. Both Muslims and non-Muslims hold this viewpoint. Yet people like Jaigirdar are both and depicting this in her books is important to Jaigirdar. Thus, we see Hani engaging with her faith. She goes to the Mosque. She reads the Quran. She eats halal. There is also a perception among many non-Muslims that if someone is serious about Islam and a woman then they will wear the hijab. But it is possible for someone to be devoutly engaging with her faith and also not wearing hijab. The author depicts this in Hani, as well as how she must struggle against the perception that she must not be a “serious” Muslim because she doesn’t wear hijab.

So this book covers a lot of seriously important representation well, and the romance is sweet and believable. What didn’t work for me was the secondary characters. Whereas Hani and Ishu felt well-rounded and interesting, everyone else felt flat and two-dimensional. There also were some kind of big issues that Hani and Ishu seemed to just gloss over. Now, they’re teenagers, so maybe that’s realistic. But Ishu having to hide the relationship from her parents long-term was concerning to me. Also, we never see the characters talk about being in an interfaith relationship. We do hear that Ishu appreciates Hani’s devotion to her faith as part of her. But Ishu is atheist, and we never really hear Hani’s thoughts on that.

Overall, this was a fun read with a lot of important representation. Recommended to readers who enjoy the fake dating and/or grumpy/sweet tropes.

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3 out of 5 stars

Length: 352 pages – average but on the longer side

Source: Library

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