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8 YAs About Defying Parental Expectations
When I was a teenager, one of the lines my mom—an immigrant, a doctor, an entrepreneur, a woman who balanced work and family and community all at once—used to slay me with on the regular was this killer: “You’re not living up to your potential.”
It’s a sentiment that many teens (and adults) know: the looming fear (and perhaps reality) that you just can’t quite hit those parental expectations. (I channeled my own such anxieties into June in Tiny Pretty Things, for example.)
And so it’s no wonder that it’s such a resounding theme in YA fiction, particularly those about immigrants and second generation Americans, who might just wilt under the weight of those expectations—or thrive despite them. It’s easy to dismiss this as “parents just don’t understand” (thanks Will Smith!). But here, some YA reads that tackle the topic with grace and flair.
Love, Hate, and Other Filters, by Samira Ahmed
Maya Aziz is an American teen with big city dreams and a camera in her hand. She’s got a crush on a maybe unsuitable boy, and parents who just don’t understand why she doesn’t straighten up and pursue the good (read: obedient!) Muslim girl path they’ve laid out for her. But that cultural tug becomes all-out war when a terrorist incident incites hate in her hometown of Chicago. Timely and super-relevant, Ahmed’s debut offers another filter on a squarely American teen existence—one still rarely explored on the page.
Picture Us in the Light, by Kelly Loy Gilbert (April 10)
Loy Gilbert served up a searing look at a father-son conflict in her stunning debut, Conviction. Her follow up, Picture Us In the Light, treads some of the same emotional ground, once again pushing parents off their pedestals and dealing with the aftermath of loss of faith. On the surface, Danny Cheng’s got it made. A scholarship to the esteemed RISD school to study design, and his parents’ blessing to do it. But there are things beneath the surface that might just shatter the façade. And he knows his parents are hiding something. When he discovers what it is, it might just destroy everything.
This Tiny, Perfect World, by Lauren Gibaldi (February 27)
In her 2015 debut, The Night We Said Yes, Gibaldi established herself as one to watch in YA contemporary. And World cements it. It follows a small-town girl named Penny, whose path is set. She’s going to marry her high school sweetheart, go to community college with her BFF, and run the family’s diner, a hometown fave. But then there’s a curveball: Penny scores a scholarship to a renowned theater camp, and her whole worldview shifts—and expands. Can she stay on the path that’s been laid out for her, a path she seemed to love just months ago? Or will she defy everyone’s expectations to make a major move?
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When Dimple Met Rishi, by Sandhya Menon
Old school meets techie cool in this classic rom com, in which heroine Dimple just wants to go to APP camp (yes, for real) and kick off her career at Stanford. Rishi, well, he’s hoping to find the love of his life in oblivious Dimple, thanks to a setup by their traditional Indian parents, who are hoping they’ll meet, click, and wed. But after iced coffee is thrown during their meet-cute moment, all bets are off. Sweet, sassy, and decidedly feminist, this love story will have you swooning. And the friction between feisty Dimple and her traditional parents will ring true to many first generation teens.
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The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo
Perhaps one of the most anticipated debuts of the year, this novel in verse centers on Dominican American Xiomara, a young girl growing up in Harlem as part of a religious immigrant family. Her mom is overbearing in impressing Catholicism on Xio and her twin brother, but Xio spills her soul in the pages of her journal, documenting the dramas and traumas of first-generation life, addressing religion, crises of faith, sexual harassment, and the rush of first love (and lust).
Calling My Name, by Liara Tamani
Houston teen Taja has always played the straight and narrow. She’s smart, pretty, religious and decidedly not rebellious. Until, suddently, she is. Told in gorgeous, poetic vignettes, this coming of age story tells the tale of Taja’s exploration of faith, first love, sexuality, family, and the ties that bond—and sometimes bind. As she sheds the role of obedient daughter for something bolder, will she lose faith and family?
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American Panda, by Gloria Chao
Mei is struggling. She’s germaphobic, her parents are super strict, her brother is MIA, and she’s got a crush on Darren, who’s of Japanese descent—and definitely off limits to a Taiwanese girl, as American as she may be. Still, she’s got to pull it together when she gets into her (parents’) dream school, MIT. Can she embrace her newfound freedom while figuring out who she really is—even if that’s not who her parents want her to be?
A Girl Like That, by Tanaz Bhathena
Zarin Wadia is one of those girls. You know the type: the ones they whisper about in dark corners. The ones they say were asking for it. The ones they say got what they deserved. That’s why they’re not so surprised when she and her love, Porus, are found dead in a ditch on the side of the highway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. But as Zarin’s story unravels, told through multiple perspectives, we’ll learn that things aren’t always as black and white as they seem.
What YA novels about defying parental expectations would you recommend?