A Girl Like That by Tanza Bhethena is now available, and you’re invited to the book launch....

Be sure to mark Saturday, March 3, on your calendar for the launch of A Girl Like That by Tanza Bhethena.

Everyone’s invited:

Saturday, March 3

3:00 p.m.

Indigo Erin Mills Bookstore

5015 Glen Erin Drive

Mississauga, ON  L5M 0r7 (Map here)

RSVP to Tanaz at tanazbhathenabooks@gmail.com

If you can’t make it to the launch, A Girl Like That is available at bookstores and from… Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Chapters Indigo | Indiebound | BAM | Powells | iBooks | Kobo | Google Books | Book Depository 

Also, Tanaz will talk about A Girl Like That on April 13 at A Room of Your Own, a book club for teen girls in Toronto. For details, see here.

And, along with literary agent Barbara Berson and Simon & Schuster children’s book editor Patricia Ocampo, Tanaz will be a guest speaker at the Writing for Children and Young Adults mini-conference on Saturday, April 21, in Waterloo. For details, click here.

About A Girl Like That…

Zarin Wadia is 16, a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a troublemaker whose romantic entanglements are the subject of endless gossip amongst the girls in her class. When she is found dead after a car accident on the Al-Harameen Expressway in Jeddah, with a Parsi boy who is not a student at Qala Academy, the religious police arrive and everything everyone thought they knew about Zarin is called into question.

A Girl Like That explores the themes of love, prejudice and gender discrimination in India and Saudi Arabia – two countries that are struggling to hold on to their traditions even as they adapt to a rapidly changing world – countries where female virtue is still inextricably linked to family honour.

A Junior Library Guild Selection

Reviews:

“Bhathena makes an impressive debut with this eye-opening novel about a free-spirited girl in present-day Saudi Arabia.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Bhathena’s lithe prose effortlessly wends between past and present…A powerful debut.” — School Library Journal (starred review)

“Bhathena does something exceptionally difficult and smart in her first book. She draws in readers with an irresistible “Who is she?” premise, only to dismantle it by showing the rarely seen perspective of a teenage girl living in the Middle East…[T]his is the story of a girl you won’t be able to stop thinking about.” — The Globe and Mail

“A Girl Like That is a book which readers will enjoy and will remember long after other novels come and go.” — CM Magazine (****/4)

“A refreshingly nuanced narrative about gender in the Middle East.” — Kirkus

Tanaz

“A Girl Like That is haunting, uncomfortable, and poignant, with persistent characters who stay with the reader, much like the ghosts hovering over the accident at the beginning of the story.” — Quill and Quire

“A Girl Like That is a book framed by loss… Zarin continues to be unapologetically herself – a messy, complicated, brave, and lovely person – right up to the end. One of the most important books I’ve read, Bhathena is a unquestionably a writer to watch.”

 — Kinsey Foreman, Odyssey Bookshop, MA

“A Girl Like That is unlike any YA book I’ve ever read:  a fascinating and disturbing glance into the gender discrimination and double-standards as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl in Saudi Arabia. It raised awareness for me, and is certain to inspire discussion about equality, justice, and basic human rights.” — Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Small Great Things and Leaving Time

“Vivid, intricately woven, and wholly immersive, A Girl Like That is a debut that will leave you both haunted and hopeful. Tanaz Bhathena is masterful at writing complicated girls and the people in their orbits.” — Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, author of Firsts

“Tanaz Bhathena has a rare ability to take a setting that would be unfamiliar to many and make it so instantly and profoundly relatable. This is a shimmering, glowing, radiant novel.”  — Jeff Zentner, Morris Award-winning author of The Serpent King

“Masterfully constructed and gorgeously written, A Girl Like That is both a page-turner about a ferocious girl fighting the twisted expectations of both family and culture, and a thoughtful meditation on the pain that weighs us down, and the love that lifts us up.” — Laura Ruby, Printz Award-winning author of Bone Gap

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.