Looking For a Good Book

Simran is the do-no-wrong, smart girl in school. She’s every parent and every teacher’s dream child. Good in school, she also volunteers her time tutoring those who struggle, specifically in mathematics. In their immigrant community, Simran is much respected and when her mother begins to struggle with her health, Simran gets much sympathy.

Among those Simran tutors is Rajan. Rajan comes from a troubled home. He’s known to run with a gang and he’s been to juvie for killing someone. Everyone tells Simran to stay away from Rajan, that he’s nothing but trouble. But Simran sees something in Rajan that nobody else sees, or is even willing to look for.

After high school, at the instance of his probation officer (who perhaps finds Rajan of interest, personally), Rajan takes up some community classes to get some education and learn a skill, and he looks for some tutoring help and … you guessed it … Simran, who’s now in school in this town as well, is his tutor once again.

The two keep things professional, though each fights against their obvious attraction to one another. And again Simran sees something in Rajan that would place him better than how the rest of the world sees or treats him.  When Rajan gets in trouble with a gang he once ran with, Simran takes it upon herself to offer her help in exchange for letting Rajan off the hook. Her innocence in thinking this would be all that was required is charming, but Rajan knows that there’s no way out of a gang debt and now he needs to protect her from his gang, a rival gang, and his own desires.

I liked this book.  I really liked this book.

I wasn’t sure at the very start that I was going to enjoy this.  I get a little tired sometimes of YA books that carry pathos and angst to an extreme and I thought that this was what we were being set up for. But it’s not. It’s so much better than that.

We get a look at two very real people characters here. It’s a fascinating study in appearances and personalities. Rajan looks like your ‘typical’ bad-boy – gangs, drugs, murder, jail – and Simran appears to be the perfect child – studious, helpful, caring. But people aren’t always what they seem on the outside, and there can be many facets to a person – few people are as simply black and white as literature often paints them. Rajan is so much better than people believe, and somehow, without even knowing all the facts, Simran saw this in him. And Simran also seems to have a nature that attracts her to taking risks and playing on the darker side.

Although I suspect many will paint this as a Romeo & Juliet story, it really isn’t, other than that these two characters are teenagers from ‘opposite’ families. Romeo and Juliet may have been from opposite families, but they weren’t from opposite castes. Romeo and Juliet declare their love for one another early, despite warring fathers. Simran and Rajan deny their affections.

The story does require that Simran and Rajan get some help from some unlikely sources and it pushes believe-ability a little bit.

The secondary characters here, some of whom make up some interesting subplots (specifically about family) are also well crafted. But this is definitely Simran and Rajan’s story and we don’t spend a lot of time with the other characters other than how they will impact Simran and Rajan’s life.

I’d highly recommend this to teen readers looking for something new. I also love that this isn’t a black and white – racially speaking – story as well. There’s culture at play which may open a few eyes.

Looking for a good book? Reasons We Break by Jesmeen Kaur Deo is a fantastic YA story of two teens coming together despite all odds.

I received a digital copy of this book  from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Reasons We Break

author: Jesmeen Kaur Deo

publisher: Disney Hyperion

ISBN: 9781368113748

hardcover, 416 pages