If you could be mine#1

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/930814274

If You Could Be Mine tells the story of Sahar, an intelligent ambitious teenager living in Iran who is in love with her best friend Nasrin. Iran is a dangerous place to be out of the closet, although there is hidden gay community, which Sahar is introduced to by her cousin Ali. 

It is at a party at Ali’s house that Sahar meets Parveen, a beautiful trans woman. Ali explains to her that the Iranian government sees trans people as a mistake made by God, a soul born into a wrongly gendered body. They’re not only accepting of transitioning, they will pay for gender re-assignment surgeries. Sahar wants nothing more than to be able to marry Nasrin, and take care of her forever, but she also knows that if she transitioned she would just be living another lie. 

If You Could Be Mine is written with simple, clear language, accessible by both YA readers and a potentially younger audience. I was brought along by the story’s narrative, even as I learned a great deal about Iran, its gender and sexuality politics, and the wealth of culture there.

A&D Discover the Secrets to the Universe

        As the friendship between Ari and Dante deepens, they become friends with each other’s parents; discover shared interests and different attitudes; and begin to awaken to feelings for each other that go beyond friendship, an intimacy with which Dante is far more comfortable and open than Ari. At one point, an encounter with a skidding car results in Ari saving Dante’s life, but suffering two broken legs in the process. Dante and his parents express deep gratitude but Ari, who tends to be uncomfortable with emotion (both his and other people’s) brushes off their thanks. Meanwhile, as an incentive towards recovery, Ari’s father buys him a truck and, after the casts on his legs are removed, Ari (after celebrating his sixteenth birthday) learns to drive, and revels in his new freedom. Around this time, he also discovers a sealed envelope with the name of his brother (who is in prison and who is never spoken about) on it.

Closing American Born Chinese

    After reading the second half of American Born Chinese, I was definitely surprised in the ending. Also in the duration of reading the book, I really liked all of it because it brought a new perspective on reading comic books. Graphic Novels do not catch my attention still. And eve still, this graphic novel is different because it had three stories in one. So even when reading this is was different from you standard graphic novel.
     The ending struck be and confused me a little because the characters began to switch up and characters began to change to other characters. For example, Chin-Kee becomes Monkey king, Danny and Jin become their true forms. Danny become Jin Wang and Wei-Chan bis the monkey King son. That became a little hard to follow but overall it was not a big issue.

     In my opinion I like how Yang, the author, incorporated issues of the real world. The struggles of acceptance and appreciation of where you come from was well incorporated in the story theme as well. I personally like to acknowledge her work as far as switching the characters to make the perspective of the reader change.