If You Could Be Mine - Sara Farizan
Imagine if it was illegal, punishable by death even, to love the person you love. Now imagine it through the eyes of a queer teenage girl.
IF YOU COULD BE MINE BY SARA FARIZAN ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Pros: entrancing love story, evokes emotion, loved the characters and the writing.
Cons: so, so sad and I wanted their love to prevail.
Trigger Warnings: Homophobia, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Violence, Deadnaming
“I definitely know that no man or woman can ever make me feel the way she does. If that makes me gay, so be it.”
I read this book a few years ago and I plan to read it again. I have a vague memory of loving the characters instantly. Something magical happened when my adolescent experience with my own queerness mixed with the storytelling of Sara Farizan.
I instantly connected to these girls, Sahar and Nasrin. Though our experiences were very different, I felt their love and their pain as intensely as I was living through 11th grade all over again. Their pain, love, joy, connection; all of it was so familiar to me, it bound me to them. The downside of reading a book like this - a book that hits so close to home - is the sting it leaves behind. I loved the book, don’t get me wrong. This story, the story that so many people actually live through, is an important one for anyone to read and understand. It just hurt a little more because when you read a romance novel, you low key kinda want that happy resolution.
Even I, a cynical earth sign who is more bitter than I have any right to be, found myself rooting for their love. Reading the book all while knowing it could end with them not being together, not getting a “happily ever after” made me feel sick. Yet, I kept reading. I finished with an ache in my stomach. I will not be diving too deeply into the plot, story, characters etc. because I don’t have the recall for that but also because, I would like you to experience it for yourself without much of my insight. It is a very good book, well written with an important narrative. I recommend it anytime, but especially for February.