Novels about multicultural teens frequently tackle two topics: parental expectations and prejudice. Students reading novels about the cultural pressure these teens experience tend to foster a more empathetic attitude toward them. In Tahereh Mafi's (Shatter Me series) An Emotion of Great Delight an Iranian American girl is grieving her brother's death and fending off prejudicial attacks after 9/11. Radha and Jai's Recipe for Romance by Nisha Sharma explores a young Indian American Kathak dancer's attempts to break free of her mother's crippling expectations. Finally in Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan a Bangladeshi American teen experiences freedom to explore her own dreams, when she is left with her permissive grandmother during her parents' month long trip to Bangladesh.
In An Emotion of Great Delight Shadi, an Iranian American teen, is struggling to deal with a plethora of problems in the aftermath of her brother's death. Her father is hospitalized having had two heart attacks, her mother is depressed, her best friend Zahra is ignoring her and it's 2003 and Islamaphobia is raging. Shadi, who wears a hijab, experiences prejudice from her teachers, other students and the community. Zahra has stopped wearing a hijab and is furious that her brother Ali is interested in Shadi. With her school work suffering and her lack of support at home, Shadi turns to Ali for comfort. This exploration of grief, racism, mental illness and discrimination is a compelling read and a window on the world of Muslim teens.
Radha and Jai's Recipe for Romance introduces Radha, an Indian American teen who has spent years competing in Indian Classical Dance competitions. She abruptly drops out, when she finds out her mother Sujata has been having an affair with one of the judges. Doubting herself and all her championships, Radha refuses to dance, much to her mother's dismay. After her parents split up, she and Sujata move to New Jersey where Radha enrolls at the Princeton Academy of Arts and Science, striking a deal with her mother to dance for a year in exchange for college tuition. Then Radha meets and falls for Punjabi Gujarati American Jai, captain of the Bollywood Dance Team, and agrees to choreograph the team's dances. Jai, who wants to be a doctor, can only finance college if the team wins the regional competition scholarship. Radha finds this dance freeing, but still experiences performance anxiety when dancing for others. To deal with her anxiety, Radha reconnects with her dad, a restaurant owner, through learning to make many of his favorite traditional Indian recipes. The novel alternates between Jai and Radha's third-person perspectives, chronicling the ins and outs of their romance and the challenges of their senior year.
Counting Down with You finds Bangladeshi American Karina Ahmed bowing to her parents'' wishes, pursuing a pre-med path even though she would rather be an English major at Columbia. When her parents leave for a month in Bangladesh, Karina's permissive grandmother comes to stay, and Karina blossoms. Her English teacher asks her to tutor bad boy Ace Clyde and sparks fly. He tells his parents that she's his girlfriend, attempting to hide that she's tutoring him He, too, is fighting parental expectations and doesn't want them to know his true motivations. She agrees to fake date him if he buys her books every week. He acts like the perfect boyfriend, and even helps her deal with her anxiety, which is fed by trying to please her parents. As the month nears the end and she and Ace have fallen for each other, Karina must decide if she has the courage to tell her parents about Ace and her aversions to becoming a doctor. The author calls this book a "love letter to brown girls," tackling the familiar issues of prejudice and parental pressure with an insightful well-paced romance between two teens struggling to follow their hearts.
