The Henna Wars

by Adiba Jaigirdar

[lessthelonely]

4/5 stars.

At this point, I'mma just start going for a queer romance everytime I'm in a reading slump, which was happening because of the book I tried reading (Sol by Con Riley) left me very dissappointed and after a steady like... 5 books that rocked my socks off? That takes a big toll.

There's proof that I don't enjoy DNFing and that I don't DNF easily: often enough, DNFing a book leaves me with no willpower to grab any other book. But I pulled through and grabbed this one!

Simply put: I wasn't expecting to get so much into this. I read most of this while letting my dog play around my yard and it was a great read. I loved the cultural insight, all the beautiful things about henna. I felt for Nishat in every step of the way, specially with the homophobia from her parents storyline - when written by non-queer people, it often feels like torture porn and "Oh, please feel sorry for me, please", but when it comes from queer people? I eat that shit up. I recoil from it. It always stays in my head and it never misses the mark in its realism. I wonder why!

Another incredibly nice surprise was Flávia! I didn't know I was going to get a Brazillian love interest to read about and it was great! I'm Portuguese, so though I can't claim to be Brazillian, I can surely understand Portuguese and it was very fun to read those parts and know exactly what I knew what I imagine a lot of readers (and Nishat, too!) didn't understand without some translating help.

It's hard to make contemporary romance engaging for me and this DELIVERED. I will definitely read other books by this author and knowing I now can read a fake-dating one? I'm very happy about that and believe me, I'll get my hands on this book physically and the other one as well.

You want a sweet, entertaining and charming romance? Pick this one up. NOW!