Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel

Book excerpt: With the heart of Judy Blume and wit of Alison Bechdel, Sara Farizan brings the authenticity and humour that distinguished her debut novel, If You Could Be Mine, to her second work of fiction for teens Leila has made it most of the way through high school without having a crush on anyone, which comes as something of a relief. Her Persian heritage makes her different enough; if word got out that Leila liked girls, life would be twice as hard. And what would her parents think? It’s bad enough she’s not even going to become a doctor. But when a sophisticated, beautiful new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never dreamed of, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual. Struggling to sort out her growing feelings and Saskia’s confusing signals, Leila confides in her old friend, Lisa, and grows closer to Tomas, whose comments about his own sexuality are frank, funny, wise and sometimes painful. Gradually, Leila begins to see that almost all of her classmates are more complicated than they first appear to be, and many are keeping fascinating secrets of their own.