The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali
Fight for love. Fight for family. Fight for yourself.
Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali has always been fascinated by the universe around her and the laws of physics that keep everything in order. But her life at home isn't so absolute.
Unable to come out to her conservative Muslim parents, she keeps that part of her identity hidden. And that means keeping her girlfriend, Ariana, a secret from them too. Luckily, only a few more months stand between her carefully monitored life at home and a fresh start at Caltech in the fall. But when Rukhsana's mom catches her and Ariana together, her future begins to collapse around her.
Devastated and confused, Rukhsana's parents whisk her off to stay with their extended family in Bangladesh where, along with the loving arms of her grandmother and cousins, she is met with a world of arranged marriages, religious tradition, and intolerance. Fortunately, Rukhsana finds allies along the way and, through reading her grandmother's old diary, finds the courage to take control of her future and fight for her love.
A gritty novel that doesn't shy away from the darkest corners of ourselves, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali provides a timely and achingly honest portrait of what it's like to grow up feeling unwelcome in your own culture and proves that love, above all else, has the power to change the world.
Featured on: Bustle, Seventeen.com, Hypable, Oprah Magazine, NBC News, the BBC, Parade, BookRiot, and Paste Magazine
"An intersectional, diverse coming of age story that will break your heart in the best way." -- Bustle.com
"A much-needed addition to any YA shelf." -- Sandhya Menon, New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi
"Heart-wrenching yet hopeful." -- Samira Ahmed, New York Times bestselling author of Love, Hate and Other Filters
"A story that will stay with you for years to come." -- Sara Farizan, Lambda Award-winning author of If You Could Be Mine
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Become an affiliatePraise for The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali:
Featured on NBC News and the BBC
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A Teen Indie Next List Pick (IndieBound)
An Amazon Best Book of the Month for February
Oprah Magazine's Best YA Books You'll Love in 2019
Seventeen.com's Best YA Books of 2019
B&N Teen Blog's Most Anticipated LGBTQAP Books of 2019
Hypable's Most Anticipated LGBTQ YA Books of 2019
Parade's Buzzworthy YA Books to Read in 2019
BookRiot's Most Anticipated 2019 LGBTQ YA of 2019
Paste Magazine's Best YA Books of January 2019
Short-listed, Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize (BC), 2020
Short-listed, OLA White Pine Award, Fiction, 2019
Commended, Best Books for Kids and Teens, Canadian Children's Book Centre, 2019
Commended, OLA Best Bets: Honorable Mention, 2019
"An intersectional, diverse coming of age story that will break your heart in the best way." -- Bustle.com
* "With an up-close depiction of the intersection of the LGBTQIA+ community with Bengali culture, this hard-hitting and hopeful story is a must-purchase for any YA collection." -- School Library Journal, starred review
"This book will break your heart and then, chapter by chapter, piece it back together again. A much-needed addition to any YA shelf." -- Sandhya Menon, New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi and From Twinkle, With Love
"Heart-wrenching yet hopeful, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali is an insightful and honest look at the tangled web of identity, culture, familial loyalty, and love. Sabina Khan crafts a powerful, poignant story about finding yourself, about speaking your truth, and about stepping out of the shadows and into the light." -- Samira Ahmed, New York Times bestselling author of Love, Hate and Other Filters
"A daring and timely novel, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali delves head-and-heart-first into the universal complexities of navigating duty and desire, tradition and modernity, and friends and family -- the one we are born into and the one we choose; the friends who are family, and the family we strive to befriend -- all through the prism of multicultured identity. Political, personal, page-turning. Sabina Khan is one to watch." -- Tanuja Desai Hidier, author of Born Confused and Bombay Blues
"Bold, heartbreaking, yet hopeful. A story that will stay with you for years to come." -- Sara Farizan, Lambda Award-winning author of If You Could Be Mine
"The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali unapologetically explores the complex ties between families, friends, and intersectional diversity. Khan brings talent and voice in this brilliant novel that will keep you reading until the very last page." -- Nisha Sharma, author of My So-Called Bollywood Life
"[The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali] takes LGBTQ fiction to another level and will help open readers' eyes to the realities that many face in these changing times." -- Shelf Awareness