Rana Joon and the One and Only Now / Shideh Etaat / Book Review

"It's your ignorance that makes you an asshole."

Rana is supposed to be a lot of things: the perfect daughter, an excellent student, a model child of immigrants. Rana is far from perfect. It's 1996, and she loves Tupac, smokes weed, and carries a dark secret, the kind her immigrant parents won't ever be able to get over: she likes girls. 

On top of all of this, her best friend Louie--the only one who knew the truth about all of her--died in a car accident almost a year ago. Since then, Rana has been unmoored, lost in grief and unseen in a world that doesn't know the truth of her. Louie was her everything, the one who encouraged her to live in the here and now. In his honor, she wants to enter the rap battle he dreamed of competing in--but she'll have to find her voice first. 

With the clock ticking, she'll have to decide whether to feature one of Louie's pieces or an original work of her own. But her family is falling apart at the seams, her grades are slipping, and she just might be falling in love... which is definitely outside the picture of what's possible. She'll have to do what Louie always told her to--live in the here and now--or risk losing her grip on it all. 

Thoughts

This book was hard to read. It's harsh. It's uncomfortable. It's confrontational. And it's also really excellent. While it is definitely meant for the older end of the YA audience, it's unflinching and uncompromising nature is magnificent. It's been a long time since I've snagged a quote from a book, and I found myself wanting to treasure up snippets of this one again and again. 

Pros

• Voicey: The character voice here is incredibly strong. As soon as I opened this book, I was immediately in the headspace of Rana, and I love that. She's got a harsh voice, one that demands attention but is, at the same time, rather mellow. Her story, her words, her narrative all set readers in a time and a place and a person, a person who is experiencing immense grief. That Shideh Ettat managed to conjure all this so quickly and so completely is astounding. I fell in love!

• Not All Roses: Rana's story is a quiet story, but her voice isn't quiet. Her experience isn't meek or mild. There's an unfortunate predilection to make all BIPOC stories "good" rep instead of real rep, featuring real people, people who are messy and hurting and harsh. Rana is not sanded edges, soft features. She's rough around the edges, caught in the throes of grief. She's growing up and experimenting, struggling with who she is and what she wants to be. And that not-quite-rosy complexion is the best rep of all. She feels real, and that makes all the difference. 

• Highs and Lows: This book does what few others do: it captures the highs and lows of coming out. Because coming out is a process. It takes time, and it never really ends. It's coming out to family, friends, new acquaintances, and each of those instances prove a chance for rejection and hurt. Or a chance for acceptance and love. Rana really struggles with who to tell and how (and why). She wrestles with what to tell her parents -- and if she even should. There's a terrible moment early on with her mom, a not-so-subtle hint that home might not be a safe place for Rana's truth. But coming out to her brother goes so smoothly. Her best friend doesn't even need to hear the words to see the truth. She struggles with her love interest, with what they can be and what she wants them to be, because she isn't really out. And these various, multifaceted actions and reactions made the uncomfortable and important landscape of coming out. This representation -- of how well things can go and how oh-so-poorly, too -- of the struggles of queer youth is so very important and so well done here. 

Cons

• "Adult Themes": I'm gushing about this book, and I'll continue to gush about this book. It is important. It is an excellent read. So why such a (relatively) low rating, overall? Well, it really comes down to this. Sure, this book is coming-of-age, which makes it feel ripe for the YA audience. But it really isn't for a YA audience. This book is too adult for that. There's on-the-page sex and drug usage. There are incredibly heavy themes in other regards as well, and while nothing is gratuitous or, necessarily, "glorifying" in this regard, it is definitely worth mentioning. It is once again the case of great book, wrong market -- something that seems to be particularly common among BIPOC stories. It's too big a risk, perhaps, to publish a queer, BIPOC coming-of-age story in an adult space, right? 

• Food Obsession: This is more of a content warning than anything else -- a content warning, that is, on top of the previous one! Rana herself might not be particularly concerned with her caloric intake, but those around her are. It is the '90s, after all. This book is steeped in calorie counting, diet dissection, body type commentary, and just overall body negativity. Though it isn't Rana's doing, it is still a negative pressure within this book that bears being forewarned. 

• Stilted Dialogue: Most of the time, the dialogue was a-okay, but every once in a while, it felt like being hit over the head. It felt like it was trying too hard. This was most especially true when Rana's old coach was talking. I get it's the nineties. I get coach is part of the rap scene. I get all that, but he's also an adult. He's an adult in a position of power. He's an adult who works at a school. So the fact that his dialogue was so slang-y felt wrong. Slang is, after all, a young person's game. 

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

6/10

Fans of Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park will like this new, messy historical fiction. Those who loved Sheba Karim's The Marvelous Mirza Girls will appreciate this Muslim rep. 

Details

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Date: July 25, 2023
Series: N/A

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Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.