Love, Hate & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

Love, Hate & Other Filters

by Samira Ahmed

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Nominated for the CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2019

A romantic and relevant debut about Islamophobia and
how it affects the normal life of a teenage girl.

Maya Aziz dreams of being a film maker in New York. Her family have other ideas. They want her to be a dutiful daughter who wears gold jewellery and high heels and trains to be a doctor. But jewellery and heels are so uncomfortable . . .

She's also caught between the guy she SHOULD like and the guy she DOES like. But she doesn't want to let Kareem down and things with Phil would never work out anyway. Would they?

Then a suicide bomber who shares her last name strikes in a city hundreds of miles away and everything changes . . .

Perfect for fans of Annabel Pitcher, WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI and THE HATE U GIVE.

Reviewed by Amber on

4 of 5 stars

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For such a short book, Love, Hate & Other Filters packs quite a punch. It tackles Islamophobia, identity struggles, first love, and so much more.

It took me no time at all to get sucked into this book and fall in love with Maya. She’s such a great main character and I loved following her on her journey as she tried to be a Muslim, and an Indian, and an American, and a teenager.

The romance really took a back seat here. Sure, it was present throughout the book, but everything was really about Maya, instead of Maya and the love interest(s).

I felt like it could have been longer, because once I was sucked in it was over in no time at all, and I would have happily read another 100 pages of Maya’s story. The pacing was really good though, and I can’t fault it.

Love, Hate & Other Filters was a fantastic #ownvoices read. I’d highly recommend it!

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 21 October, 2017: Finished reading
  • 21 October, 2017: Reviewed