YOUR HEART AFTER DARK – Advanced Reader Copy BOOK REVIEW

Maria Chaudhry’s personal demons trap her in a downward spiral, but the beast lurking in Ehmet’s blood can do a lot worse than that. After a year of living in a prissy suburb, Maria Chaudhry is back downtown. Back to what she never wanted to leave. But she can’t really enjoy it since neither the living nor the dead will leave her in peace.

JC’s death still keeps her up at night and Ehmet’s sudden ambivalence isn’t helping. Maybe she had read his signals wrong and Ehmet was never in love with her like she thought. Or maybe his love is tangled with secrets too dark to speak aloud, secrets about JC’s death and the unpredictable beast in Ehmet’s blood.

When an upcoming hiking trip is canceled, there’s no pretty path left towards the truth. A growing spiral of deceit threatens to tear Maria and Ehmet apart forever, but the beast lurking within Ehmet can do a lot worse than that.

Mahtab Rohan’s debut YA novel delivers a paranormal tale of crumbling friendships, malevolent secrets, and the struggle to have hope in the face of uncertainty.

When HEAR OUR VOICES posted wanting reviewers for Your Heart After Dark (YHAD), reading the above synopsis intrigued me. South Asian and Muslim representation and paranormal – all in the same territory? That was a first! I immediately signed up for it even though it is Young Adult genre and I’m not really young anymore! Genre limitations have never stopped me before though so I was going to try anyway! I was truly excited when I got picked to be a part of their book tour for YHAD.

Today, Sept 9th, is my stop for the book tour! So here goes…

It took me a while to get into the book at first…a few pages in and it hooked my interest. After that I literally finished the book in 2 sittings of 2 hours each. This book has a unique representation of Uyghur, Desi and Muslim hijabi as the Main Characters. It is truly uplifting the way the author has developed these characters. The desi references throughout the book were spot on too, and brought a smile to my face while reading.

YHAD follows Maria, Ehmet and their group of close friends, all dealing with teenage struggles, secrets, family issues and mostly, the death of a beloved group member.

Mahtab Rohan did an impressive portrayal of the central character, a Muslim hijabi, Maria. Even though she’s battling emotional turmoil, upheavals in her personal life and irreparable grief, she is inspiring with her confidence in her skin, her religion, her self-respect and her loyalty for her family and friends. Granted some of the anguish is more in her mind than real, but then when is half of it not? Throughout the novel, the character development is brilliant. You see a girl who’s been forced by circumstances to grow up too soon into a woman with an outlook of life beyond her age, but you also see a daughter, a friend, a big sister, a granddaughter and everything else in between.

During a course of conversation, a character asks her why doesn’t she get rid of her headscarf if it troubles her so much. Maria replies, it is not the headscarf that troubles her, it’s the people. If you didn’t fall in love with the character till then, at that point you sure will.

Now coming to the other main character, Ehmet, a Uyghur, who also happens to be the paranormal protagonist – when have you ever heard a story with South Asians and werewolves in it? I was fascinated to see how this story arc plays out. I was a little disappointed – I felt either there should have been more of it or maybe none. The book already has enough gravitas to be interesting without the supernatural element. Since the book kind of ends on a cliffhanger, maybe we will see this arc develop more in the sequel? I hope so, because I do have questions that need to be answered. Overall though it made for some dramatic moments in the story, along with tying in with the life-changing major event that Maria, Ehmet and their friends are dealing through.  It was a bold and unique attempt by the author and I appreciate it.

One other thing that I was not a fan of, were the multiple perspectives and the going back and forth between past and present. It made the book a little hard to follow at times due to the abruptness of it in some places. Some sections didn’t connect well. Personally, I would have preferred to just keep it to Maria and Ehmet narrating. Other voices at times weren’t necessary in my opinion. However, YOU, as a reader, maybe able to transition between the voices and time frames better than me, so don’t let this deter you from reading.

All of the characters experience hardships and have to deal with their personal demons. The author does a good job with the layers and depths of feelings depicted, making it a powerful and emotional read. The metaphorical writing is mesmerizing in places. Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

“Life starts with one breath and ends with one breathe, too. If you learn how to control the breaths in between, you can save yourself a lot of grief.”

“It’s up to you how you see your life, so why not see it is as a story of conquering everything that came your way? Why pick misery as a lens over triumph?”

“The best way to move on is to only think of the moment I’m in, nothing that happened before it and nothing that might happen after it. The past and the future are realms of unhappiness and only the present can be saved.”

At the end of it, I have 3 points that will compel you to pick this book irrespective of the genres you generally incline to:

1. The #ownvoices representation of South Asians, Muslims, Muslim hijabi and Uyghur – we can never support diversity enough.

2. Even though it is categorized as Young Adult and all the main characters are teenagers, for a change it is not a shallow, girl-meets-boys-meets-girl, hormonal-induced antics or general stereotypical teen foolishness that we tend to see in a lot of the books. It is an intelligent and profound read, with well-written characters.

3. The best part about YHAD is that religion is not used a weapon/source of conflict. It is just there as a daily life, every day thing. There is no preaching, no undue oppression or unwarranted dialogues. That was truly refreshing, especially given the Islam discourse which invariably, (in so much books that I have read) tends to go in overreaching, appalling tangents.

Congrats to Mahtab Rohan for her successful debut!