Love From A to Z by S.K Ali Book Review

Hello everyone – it’s Zainab here- welcome or welcome back to my blog! Thankfully, I’ve recovered from Covid so I’m back to creating posts for you guys. Today’s post is going to be a book review of one of my new favourite books (that actually cured a lot of my boredom during isolation)! It’s called Love From A to Z by S.K Ali – it’s such a popular book and I’ve only just gotten round to reading it, I’ve had a lot of recommendations for it by blogger friends, so today I’ll be reviewing it myself!

Official Reviews

Love From A to Z received some incredible reviews, including a full 5 star rating from Waterstones and an average rating of 4.2/5 on Goodreads as well as a Google Average User Rating of 94%

My Opinion

One of the things that really stood out to me about this book compared to other books is the versatility of the overall story. There are so many different genres weaved into this one story. The main genre is obviously some romance between Adam and Zayneb but there’s so much more to the plot such as activism through Zayneb dealing with an Islamaphobic teacher, dealing with health as Adam was diagnosed with MS, culture because the story was set in Doha but all the characters had different backgrounds; and more. And S.K Ali did a very good job at interlinking them into one great book all leading back to the main story!

As everyone knows, I’m a huge fan of representation – especially when I feel that I can relate to it. And this book had such amazing Muslim representation! The female lead Zayneb was unapologetically Muslim and took pride in it. And she and Adam always put their Islamic faith first which was so lovely to see in a 21st century romance novel, Zayneb and Adam both acknowledged their faith and made sure they were doing the right thing in their relationship! I also love how the author brought up Islamic practices in a way for everyone to be able to understand and could educate other readers too!

This story is also super empowering because the characters are so strong willed and resilient in the situations they’re put into. Since this is a book anyone can read, I think showing that teenagers can be really strong and mature was a great thing to add in during this day and age! I also really enjoyed the breaking down of stereotypes in the story. Zayneb, the female lead, had a short temper and was suspended from school at the beginning, whereas Adam, the male lead, was quite sad and was trying to get through his diagnosis and relied on Zayneb a little bit – you’d usually associate each storyline with the opposite gender, so I love the uniqueness of this!

The structure of the story was also something I really loved, it was written as diary entires from both Adam and Zayneb. This was particularly enjoyable because every major event had both characters viewpoint’s so you could get both sides of the story.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it really helped lifted my spirts, so if you need a good heartfelt story, this is the one for you!

Synopsis

A marvel: something you find amazing. Even ordinary-amazing. Like potatoes—because they make French fries happen. Like the perfect fries Adam and his mom used to make together. An oddity: whatever gives you pause. Like the fact that there are hateful people in the world. Like Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how “bad” Muslims are. But Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, isn’t bad. She’s angry. When she gets suspended for confronting her teacher, and he begins investigating her activist friends, Zayneb heads to her aunt’s house in Doha, Qatar, for an early start to spring break.
Then her path crosses with Adam’s. Since he got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in November, Adam’s stopped going to classes, intent, instead, on perfecting the making of things. Intent on keeping the memory of his mom alive for his little sister. Adam’s also intent on keeping his diagnosis a secret from his grieving father. Alone, Adam and Zayneb are playing roles for others, keeping their real thoughts locked away in their journals.

Until a marvel and an oddity occurs… Marvel: Adam and Zayneb meeting. Oddity: Adam and Zayneb meeting.

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Thank you all so much for reading this review, let me know if you’ve read Love From A to Z, I’d love to talk about it in the comments!

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