One of my reading goals for 2024 is to finally read my backlog. One of the books that has been on my Kindle app for ages now is The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar. Sometimes, you get positively surprised by a backlist title, like I was with Dearest Clementine by Lex Martin. Was this the case for this book as well?

About the book

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar
Published by Page Street on May 12, 2020
Pages: 387
ISBN: 9781624149689
Genres: Contemporary, Young adult

Nishat doesn’t want to lose her family, but she also doesn’t want to hide who she is, and it only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life. Flávia is beautiful and charismatic, and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat decide to showcase their talent as henna artists. In a fight to prove who is the best, their lives become more tangled—but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush, especially since Flávia seems to like her back.

As the competition heats up, Nishat has a decision to make: stay in the closet for her family, or put aside her differences with Flávia and give their relationship a chance.

My review

Expectations

This book was published in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. I was still reading a lot of YA back then, it still was my go-to genre. However, I left this book untouched for years. Now, I finally picked it up and I decided to start wiht no expectations at all. My reading tastes have changed drastically, I barely read YA these days. Also, the main characters are in high school, something I can’t resonate with anymore.

Characters

We follow Nishat and Flávia, two young girls who are on the road to self discovery. The book opens with a scene where Nishat is coming out to her parents as lesbian, something that is very uncommon in Islam and Bengali culture. Her parents’ reaction is therefore quite typical, however heart-wrenching for Nishat. Besides her identifying as a lesbian, we barely get to know her, nor her younger sister Priti. Once school starts, Nishat has to do a business project. She decides to start her own henna business, since she loves it and it’s part of her culture. She wants to introduce people to this part of her heritage. However, she has competition from Flávia, another girl in school who isn’t even Bengali and tries to steal Nishat’s culture. Throughout the book, they spend time togetheer, but I find it hard to break these characters down. We only get a little amount of information about them. So for me, they fell flat and quite generic as characters. I couldn’t connect to them at all, let alone picture them tgether as a couple.

Writing

This is Jaigirdar’s debut novel and that’s somewhat visible, this book is definitely not flawless. Despite it’s 387 pages, the writing is easy to follow and it doesn’t feel like you’re reading a chonker. However, the writing is quite generic and never stands out. It’s suitable for the younger readers though because of the fast-paced and easy flooding.

Plot

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the plot and therefore it became pretty clear, pretty quick that this book isn’t for me anymore. I’m not the target audience. The themes and approach were interesting, but I couldn’t resonate with the high school setting anymore as that has been years ago for me. I therefore zoned out a lot, the book didn’t intrigue me from start to finish. The storyline is paperthin, so is the excecution of the characters. However, younger readers would have a much better time with this book than I had.

Final thoughts

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar is not a bad book, but I left it on the shelf for too long indeed. I know younger readers will enjoy this story much more than I did since my reading preferences have changed a lot overtime. However, it’s definitely a solid debut. The high school settin didn’t resonate with me anymore and to be honest took away a lot from the topics that did interest me in this novel. Will I read another book by this author? I don’t think so as all published books are YA and the subjects don’t speak to me. Again, this has nothing to do with the author or the writing, just with me not being the target audience anymore.