This tear-jerker will leave readers wanting to follow the next chapter in Darius’ life.Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Khorram’s debut novel is filled with insight into the lives of teens, weaving together the reality of living with mental illness while also dealing with identity and immigration politics. For the first time in a long time, Darius learns to love himself no matter what external forces attempt to squash his confidence. Sohrab teaches Darius what friendship is really about: loyalty, honesty, and someone who has your back in a football (soccer) match. But all that changes when Darius meets Sohrab, a Bahá’í boy, in Yazd. When he arrives in Iran, learning to play the Persian card game Rook, socializing, and celebrating Nowruz with a family he had never properly met before is all overwhelming and leaves Darius wondering if he’ll ever truly belong anywhere. He’s mocked for his name and nerdy interests at Chapel Hill High School in Portland, Oregon, and doesn’t speak enough Farsi to communicate with his Iranian relatives either.

Iranian on his mother’s side and white American on his father’s side, Darius never quite fits in. When Darius’ grandfather becomes terminally ill, Darius, along with his parents and younger sister, travels to Iran for the first time in his life. Love blooms slowly, but this is an old-fashioned romance reminiscent of Robin McKinley’s and Patricia McKillip’s novels, concerned with the power of stories.Īn elegant, classic, and vivid fairy tale.ĭarius Kellner suffers from depression, bullying by high school jocks, and a father who seems to always be disappointed in him. No Disney heroine, white, red-haired Yeva is also-appreciably-not an instantly lethal, superpowered heroine, although she is single-mindedly bent first on survival, then on revenge. Building upon a familiar tale, Spooner creates a detailed world populated by complex characters, with medieval household mundanities and retellings of Russian folk tales anchoring the later fantastic elements.

Blaming the Beast for her father’s absence, Yeva becomes his captive, then his would-be assassin-trained to kill for him but also hoping to kill him-yet struggles to reconcile his violence and humanity.

Preferring solitude to her persistent suitor, Solmir, and a brewing love triangle-Asenka is drawn to Solmir-Yeva hunts, first for game, then for the Beast. But when her merchant father loses their fortune and retreats to the wilderness with Yeva and her older sisters, Lena (Light) and Asenka (Grace), Yeva must remember her woodcraft in order to protect her family. A rich, Russian-influenced retelling of “Beauty and the Beast.”īored by her comfortable life in town, Yeva (Beauty) longs for the woods.

Hunted spooner