Hana Khan Carries On

Score: 4/5 Bookmarks

Thank you to Berkley for gifting me a review copy of Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin.

Hana works as an intern at a Toronto radio station and works part-time at her family’s halal restaurant in the Golden Crescent neighborhood. In her small amount of spare time she also runs her own podcast, where she gets to be herself, tell her own stories, and connect with her listeners.

When a competing halal restaurant moves into her neighborhood and threatens to put her family’s business under, Hana decides to take matters into her own hands and do something about it.

This book will make you feel. It really puts you in Hana’s shoes and weaves a complex tapestry of her life. At times I felt like there were too many competing storylines, and that I would have happily read a whole book about each of them, but I suppose life isn’t actually that neat. I did really, really want to find out more about Hana’s family and their history though.

Hana was a wonderful character and by the end of the book I felt like I really knew her. I loved watching her grow and learn and realize things about herself throughout the book. I liked Aydin, Hana’s love interest / enemy, well enough but Hana was the stand-out star for me. And I think her cousin Rashid needs his own book, I felt like he had a lot more stories to tell, and his personality was practically bursting off the page.

I saw this book referred to as a rom-com quite a few times, and I don’t agree with that at all. There is a little romance, but I’d put it in women’s fiction or contemporary lit. It’s a wonderful book, but there really isn’t anything comedic about it. It deals with heavy topics such as racism, Islamophobia, hate crimes, sexism, microaggressions etc.

So don’t go into it thinking it’s a light, fluffy enemies-to-lovers rom-com, but definitely go get yourself a copy!

Synopsis:

From the author of Ayesha at Last comes a sparkling new rom-com for fans of “You’ve Got Mail,” set in two competing halal restaurants.

Sales are slow at Three Sisters Biryani Poutine, the only halal restaurant in the close-knit Golden Crescent neighbourhood. Hana waitresses there part time, but what she really wants is to tell stories on the radio. If she can just outshine her fellow intern at the city radio station, she may have a chance at landing a job. In the meantime, Hana pours her thoughts and dreams into a podcast, where she forms a lively relationship with one of her listeners. But soon she’ll need all the support she can get: a new competing restaurant, a more upscale halal place, is about to open in the Golden Crescent, threatening Three Sisters.

When her mysterious aunt and her teenage cousin arrive from India for a surprise visit, they draw Hana into a long-buried family secret. A hate-motivated attack on their neighbourhood complicates the situation further, as does Hana’s growing attraction for Aydin, the young owner of the rival restaurant—who might not be a complete stranger after all.

As life on the Golden Crescent unravels, Hana must learn to use her voice, draw on the strength of her community and decide what her future should be.