Perfectly Parvin

 

My Thoughts:

Parvin (PAR-veen) thinks that in order to get a date for homecoming, she needs to look less Iranian (body hair everywhere, including her toes, unibrow, curly hair) and more like the girls on the romance movies (quiet, hairless, straight hair, submissive). Despite her friends and her aunt in Iran telling her that she is enough as her passionate, outspoken self, but it takes her a while to figure this out for herself. When she gets dumped during orientation because her new summer boyfriend says she is too much, Parvin thinks it is because she is too loud, so she makes a plan to fix that. But when she later finds out that it is because she is Muslim and middle eastern and does not fit in to his church friends, MAGA group, she finally realizes that it is not anything she can change. By the time she realizes that, has she lost her two best friends? 

There is an ICE airport detainment scene that is a little scary,  but otherwise, this is an appropriate rom com for upper middle grades and YA. The queer relationships in this rom com are also healthy and accepting, even by the parents. That makes this cute and nerdy in a bassoon playing kind of way. 

From the Publisher:

Fourteen-year-old Iranian-American Parvin Mohammadi sets out to win the ultimate date to homecoming in this heartfelt and outright hilarious debut.

Parvin Mohammadi has just been dumped--only days after receiving official girlfriend status. Not only is she heartbroken, she's humiliated. Enter high school heartthrob Matty Fumero, who just might be the smoking-hot cure to all her boy problems. If Parvin can get Matty to ask her to Homecoming, she's positive it will prove to herself and her ex that she's girlfriend material after all. There's just one problem: Matty is definitely too cool for bassoon-playing, frizzy-haired, Cheeto-eating Parvin. Since being herself hasn't worked for her in the past (see aforementioned dumping), she decides to start acting like the women in her favorite rom-coms. Those women aren't loud, they certainly don't cackle when they laugh, and they smile much more than they talk.

But Parvin discovers that being a rom-com dream girl is much harder than it looks. Also hard? The parent-mandated Farsi lessons. A confusing friendship with a boy who's definitely not supposed to like her. And hardest of all, the ramifications of the Muslim ban on her family in Iran. Suddenly, being herself has never been more important.

Olivia Abtahi's debut is as hilarious as it is heartfelt--a delightful tale where, amid the turmoil of high school friendships and crushes, being yourself is always the perfect way to be.