YA new release review: Love, Hate, and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

Love, Hate, and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

Maya Aziz longs to escape the small town of Batavia, Illinois, where she is known as both the Indian girl and the Muslim girl. Graduation is looming, and her dream is to go to NYU’s film school. She secretly applied and was surprised to get an acceptance letter from NYU, but hasn’t had the courage to tell her parents, who expect her to go to college close to home to study law. But Maya loves making documentary films, and can’t imagine life without her camera in hand.

Maya narrates the story in first person, and views her life as a cross between a cheesy romantic comedy (without the romance, so far) and a Bollywood epic (again, without the romance). Then Maya is thrown together with a charming Indian young man, Kareem, at a family wedding. Both moms seem intent on an arranged marriage for the two.  But just days later all-American boy Phil seems interested in becoming more than Maya’s study partner, and Maya realizes her life has become a teen-movie love triangle.

Maya struggles under the weight of her parent’s expectations to carry on Indian traditions against her own dreams that are much more American.

Then a terrorist attack in nearby Springfield destroys part of a federal building, and a Muslim man is implicated. Much like after 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment rears its ugly head.  Maya and her parents are both subjected to hate attacks because they are Muslim and share the same last name of the attacker.

Samira Ahmed does a wonderful job showing the colorful and exotic world of Indian culture that Maya has grown up with, and blending that with the average-American-teenage girl just dreaming about her future and longing to have her first kiss.  Teen readers, who were either still toddlers or not yet born when 9/11 happened, will get a realistic feel of what it is like to be targeted for your religion and skin color rather than your beliefs.

Samira Ahmed has crafted a realistic, heart-wrenching novel that captures the confusion, hope, pressure, and dreams of what it’s like to be an American teenager. Love, Hate, and Other Filters will be at the top of the list of books I recommend to teen readers, and I plan to buy a stack for my library.