“Are you in the mood for some sad romance books? Do you want to cry comfortably while reading? Well, do I have the sad, sad list for you. Readers, like yourselves, come to sad romance books with the expectation that it will hurt, but they will be happy about it by the end.

Crying at books is a wonderful thing, especially at books with a Happily Ever After or Happy For Now (HEA/HFN) waiting for you at the end. There is something incredibly impressive about a romance book that can make you cry. Objectively, romance readers know that everything will work out for the main couple in the end. They are romances after all. Nevertheless, we still cry when sad romance books warrant a deluge of tears.“

Day 5: JOMPBPC: Hardcover Or Paperback?

I absolutley love paperbacks! 💕

a very large expanse of sea headers

• like/reblog if you save.

Title: A Very Large Expanse of Sea

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Series or standalone: standalone

Publication year: 2018

Genres: fiction, contemporary, romance, coming of age, historical fiction

Blurb: It's 2002 - a year after 9/11. It's an extremely turbulent time politically, especially so for someone like Shirin - a 16-year-old Muslim girl who's tired of being stereotyped. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She's tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments, even the physical violence she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day...so she's built up protective walls, and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons breakdancing with her brother. Then she meets Ocean James. He's the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her. They seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds, and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she's not sure she'll ever be able to let it down.

“If the decision you’ve made has brought you closer to humanity, then you’ve done the right thing.”

Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

🌙 Ramadan Mubarak - Books ft. Muslims

🦇 Good morning, my beautiful bookish bats. To celebrate this Islamic holy month, here are a FEW books featuring Muslim characters. I hope you consider adding a few to your TBR.

❓What was the last book you read that taught you something new OR what's at the top of your TBR?

🌙 A Woman is No Man - Etaf Rum 🌙 Amal Unbound - Aisha Saeed 🌙 Love From A to Z - S.K. Ali 🌙 Hana Khan Carries On - Uzma Jalaluddin 🌙 Yes No Maybe So - Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed 🌙 Evil Eye - Etaf Rum 🌙 I Am Malala - Malala Yousafzai 🌙 Exit West - Mohsin Hamid 🌙 Written in the Stars - Aisha Saeed 🌙 The Night Diary - Veera Hiranandani 🌙 Much Ado About Nada - Uzma Jalaluddin 🌙 The Eid Gift - S.K. Ali 🌙 More Than Just a Pretty Face - Syed M. Masood 🌙 Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero - Saadia Faruqi 🌙 If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan 🌙 Snow - Orhan Pamuk 🌙 Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged - Ayisha Malik 🌙 The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad 🌙 And I Darken - Kiersten White 🌙 The Last White Man - Mohsin Hamid

🌙 Hijab Butch Blues - Lamya H 🌙 The Bad Muslim Discount - Syed M. Masood 🌙 Ms. Marvel - G. Willow Wilson 🌙 Love from Mecca to Medina - S.K. Ali 🌙 The City of Brass - S.A. Chakraborty 🌙 The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim 🌙 A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar 🌙 A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi 🌙 An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh Mafi 🌙 The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan 🌙 The Moor’s Account - Laila Lalami 🌙 Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian 🌙 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 🌙 When a Brown Girl Flees by Aamna Quershi 🌙 Jasmine Falling by Shereen Malherbe 🌙 Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad 🌙 Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini 🌙 A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 🌙 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 🌙 Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

🌙 Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie 🌙 All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir 🌙 The Bohemians by Jasmin Darznik 🌙 Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin 🌙 A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif 🌙 Chronicle of a Last Summer by Yasmine El Rashidi 🌙 A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena 🌙 Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga 🌙 The Mismatch by Sara Jafari 🌙 Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah 🌙 You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen 🌙 Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali 🌙 Once Upon an Eid - S.K. Ali and Aisha Saeed 🌙 Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan 🌙 Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson 🌙 The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar 🌙 A Show for Two by Tashie Bhuiyan 🌙 Nayra and the Djinn by Michael Berry 🌙 All-American Muslim Girl by Lucinda Dyer 🌙 It All Comes Back to You by Farah Naz Rishi

🌙 The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim 🌙 Salaam, with Love by Sara Sharaf Beg 🌙 Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf 🌙 How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi 🌙 Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan 🌙 Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam 🌙 She Wore Red Trainers by Na'ima B. Robert 🌙 Hollow Fires by Lucinda Dyer 🌙 Internment by Samira Ahmed 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Love in a Headscarf - Shelina Zahra Janmohamed 🌙 Courting Samira by Amal Awad 🌙 The Other Half of Happiness by Ayisha Malik 🌙 Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy 🌙 Love, Hate & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed 🌙 Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed 🌙 Muslim Girls Rise - Saira Mir and Aaliya Jaleel 🌙 Amira & Hamza - Samira Ahmed 🌙 The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf 🌙 Nura and the Immortal Palace by M.T. Khan

🌙 As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh 🌙 Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan 🌙 Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao 🌙 The Yard - Aliyyah Eniath 🌙 When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar 🌙 The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty 🌙 Maya's Laws of Love by Alina Khawaja 🌙 The Chai Factor by Farah Heron 🌙 The Beauty of Your Face - Sahar Mustafah 🌙 Hope Ablaze by Sarah Mughal Rana

24 please!

Favorite Young Adult book(s).

uhhhh

SO MANY

beauty queens by libba bray

legendborn by tracy deonn

in other lands by sarah rees brennan

ophelia after all by racquel marie

with the fire on high by elizabeth acevedo

elatsoe by darcie little badger

graceling by kristen cashore

the storyteller by antonio michaelis

strange the dreamer by laini taylor

a very large expanse of sea by tahereh mafi

little thieves by margaret owen

the scapegracers by h a clarke

the mirror season by anna-marie mclemore

this is absolutely an incomplete list i could go on and on for ages. my ya shelf on goodreads has over 700 books on it actually

Talk shop Tuesday: are there any major influences on your writing? Authors you really admire or particular parts of canon that you find really inspiring?

Definitely! I think all authors are in some way inspired by other stories. Here are some I love which inform how I write fics:

—Star Wars’s Original Trilogy arc about Luke bringing his father back from the Dark Side. Luke gave Vader hope and the courage to stand up to Palpatine/Sidious and do something heroic for the first time in 23 years, and reclaim himself in the process. And given him showing up as a Force Ghost at the very end, we can surmise he’s at peace, on the Light Side. Something deemed impossible by basically everyone else…Luke, Anakin’s son, did it. That kind of trope is so often given to romantic partners, I love seeing it made platonic (I love seeing any trope made platonic, really). And it’s…definitely an inspiration for something I haven’t yet written but have started plotting 👀

—The Lego Movie’s whole idea of a hero choosing their own destiny. There was no prophecy, it was made-up—Emmett’s heroism is because of his own choices. And him saying to the villain at the end, “you don’t have to be the bad guy”…that got me in the feels 🥺 can’t say the same about the second movie, but the first movie had some strong emotional themes in it.

—As much as I dislike the Flash’s later seasons, there’s this one scene of Iris hallucinating a dinner date with Barry that just stuck with me—it was so sweet, and that’s what made it so tragic. I used that as inspiration to write this fic for my CK AU!

—And also ofc I was inspired by the flashback episode of Ms Marvel to write this fic for Maiko 🥰 it’s still one of my pride and joy fics. The themes gelled so well imo, adapting it was really fun.

As for authors…I definitely admire Agatha Christie, Suzanne Collins, and Tahereh Mafi (I haven’t read Shatter Me, but I’ve read A Very Large Expanse of Sea, which I highly recommend). I also admire a number of fic authors like you, @seek--rest, @promiseofthepremise, @kitkatt0430, @fezwearingjellybananas, and @goldheartedchaoticdisaster, to name a few 💞 inspirational writing styles/ideas/themes all around!

talk shop tuesday!

New Releases

Two new books dropping this week and both look really good. Which one should I purchase first? 

Midnight Strikes by Zeba Shahnaz Delacorte Press

Seventeen-year-old Anaïs just wants tonight to end. As an outsider at the kingdom’s glittering anniversary ball, she has no desire to rub shoulders with the nation’s most eligible (and pompous) bachelors—especially not the notoriously roguish Prince Leo. But at the stroke of midnight, an explosion rips through the palace, killing everyone in its path. Including her.

The last thing Anaïs sees is fire, smoke, chaos . . . and then she wakes up in her bedroom, hours before the ball. No one else remembers the deadly attack or believes her warnings of disaster.

Not even when it happens again. And again. And again.

If she’s going to escape this nightmarish time loop, Anaïs must take control of her own fate and stop the attack before it happens. But the court’s gilded surface belies a rotten core, full of restless nobles grabbing at power, discontented commoners itching for revolution, and even royals who secretly dream of taking the throne. It’s up to Anaïs to untangle these knots of deadly deceptions . . . if she can survive past midnight. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

The Next New Syrian Girl by Ream Shukairy Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Khadija Shami is a Syrian American high school senior raised on boxing and football. Saddled with a monstrous ego and a fierce mother to test it, she dreams of escaping her sheltered life to travel the world with her best friend.

Leene Tahir is a Syrian refugee, doing her best to adjust to the wildly unfamiliar society of a suburban Detroit high school while battling panic attacks and family pressures.

When their worlds collide the result is catastrophic. To Khadija, Leene embodies the tame, dutiful Syrian ideal she’s long rebelled against. And to Leene, Khadija is the strong-willed, closed-off American who makes her doubt her place in the world.

But as Khadija digs up Leene’s past, a startling and life-changing discovery forces the two of them closer together. As the girls secretly race to unravel the truth, a friendship slowly and hesitantly begins blooming. Doubts are cast aside as they realize they have more in common than they each expected. What they find takes them on a journey all the way to Jordan, challenging what each knows about the other and herself.

Fans of Samira Ahmed’s Love, Hate, and Other Filters and Tahereh Mafi’s A Very Large Expanse Of Sea will love Khadija and Leene’s sharp-witted voices in this dual POV narrative. The Next New Syrian Girl is a poignant and timely blend of guilt, nostalgia, devotion, and bad-ass hijabees.

LUNLUN'S READING CHALLENGE!

Day 11-13~

11. Do you remember the first book you read?

I think it was the three little pigs or goldilocks.

12. Share the playlist you listen to while reading.

It usually depends on what type of book I read,but mostly I listen to kpop or lofi beats.

13. What is the best weather to read?

Rainy,winter and autumn!!

🎧- Karma by Taylor Swift

📖-Nothing more to tell by Karen M.Mcmanus and A very large expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

1 and 11 for Adonis and Jude for the opinion corner meme!! ☺️

𝒎𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒆   ,   𝒐𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒏   𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒓   ! 

1. where did you get your idea for them?

i got the idea for Jude during my Marvel hyper-fixation summer. that was also around the same time i read A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi, i believe? and i just got very frustrated with how bad representation is for muslim women. and i was like...you know what? i'm gonna make my own representation. and it was particularly easy for be inspired for Jude at the time bc it was Ramadan and i was drowning in the muslim vibes, fasting and praying more than usual and all that. i remember it took me a long time to figure out what my muslim superhero's power would be. i don't know how i landed on Alien Blob Friend Who Gives You Super-strength and Endurance. but what i do remember is coming up with Jude's family. she needed to have some sort of family drama (bc which of my muses don't?), but i didn't want to play into the conservative/misogynistic/abusive muslim dad trope. i honestly would have rather DIED than gone with that, so i decided to do the opposite: toxic mom. and i started building from there.

Adonis, like Zoran, was a product of his time. i believe it was 15yo me who started RPing Althea on tumblr and then decided to make a "genderbent" verse for her, and the result was Adonis. @iincantatorum helped me massively with his creation proccess, actually!!! and just like with Zoran, Adonis became his own person. i was in the proccess of doing my SATs and deciding what college i wanted to go to and all that stuff, so my arab dad's expectations (he wanted me to study medicine) bled right into Adonis' character, making him who he is today.

11. what’s something that you don’t get to express with your oc often?

with Jude, I don't really get to express her religious side often. i guess some people may feel that her religious side is expressed well enough bc she's a hijabi, but...that's not really an all-encompassing aspect of religion? i don't get to write Jude much, and when i do, it's usually her superhero side. i don't get to express everyday Jude, trying to find somewhere quiet to pray in uni, trying to tie her hair in several directions at home bc the roots have been locked in one way under her scarf all day. i don't get to write the Jude that talks about her mom or sings arabic songs under her breath while doing the dishes. i don't get to write the Jude that helps her father read an english children's book and playfully insults her brother in passing. i guess i just really want to write domestic Jude.

as for Adonis, i feel like i don't get to express his reliable side much. sure, he's fragile as glass and very emotional and lets people use him as a doormat, but he's actually... like, dude, he's a grown adult man. he's great with his patients at the hospital, he's a lovely and reliable coworker, he can cook and take care of other people. that's the side Pearl brings out in him in verse 2. when he's alone, he doesn't really bother to take care of himself. but when his daughter is there, he has to cook every day and spend time relaxing with her and playing some games and just-- doing things that are good for the soul and taking care of a whole human child. in most threads, Adonis is this helpless man-child that everybody loves bc he's nice and soft and horny, but he's so much more than that

Day 28: JOMPBPC: Frosty Window

An open window instead of a frosty wondow and a beautiful book! 💜

hi jenna!!! happy sunday! so im looking for new books to read, so what's your favorite book? or just any books you'd recommend! ❤❤❤

heyyy bee happy sunday<33

i'm not sure what types of books you like to read (and i don't do as much book reading as i used to a few years ago) but my favorite book series is the raven boys by maggie stiefvater! god i love her so much and i LOOOOVE that series so so much. i've read it over and over and over again. and i've listened to the audiobook a few times too and i love that too, if that's the kind of thing that you're into.

other than that, here are a few books i've read over the past few years that i've really liked: verity by colleen hoover, the invisible life of addie larue by ve schwab, writers & lovers by lily king, an ember in the ashes (series) by sabaa tahir, a very large expanse of sea by tahereh mafi, and the villains series by ve schwab

hope you find something there that you haven't read yet that interests you! let me know if you end up reading any of em<3

AUTHOR FEATURE:

﹒Tahereh Mafi﹒

Five Books Written By this Author:

Shatter Me

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

Furthermore

This Woven Kingdom

An Emotion of Great Delight

___

Happy reading!

i've read 25 books this year so far and here are my only 5 star reads:

we started of SOOOOOOO STRONG with This Woven Kingdom. islamic mythology???????????? kingdoms????????? pining dude and strong female mc?????? yah. yeah.

2. the 6th book of the shatter me series aka the best book of the shatter me series: Imagine Me. listen that fucking hand to hand combat scene between ****** and ********. nah. nah that was. nah

3. A Very Large Expanse of Sea. clearly i was on a tahereh mafi road trip. i was offended by this book but in a good way? idk reminded me of middle school sarah

4. the second book in the embers series aka Torch Against the Night. yeah. elias? yeah. also MORE MYTHOLOGY???? BROWN PEOPLE ???? YEAH. YEAH THAT'S ME HABIBI

5. the last book in the embers series aka A Sky Beyond the Storm. i still don't want to talk about it.

6. Book of Night itched my fucking BRAIN do you understand me. itched it real fucking good. THAT ENDING??? MY GOD. this had the perfect amount of romance. y'all saying there wasn't romance in there, you are LYINGGGGGG and i am watching you lie.