Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - I Will Greet the Sun Again

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC in exchange for a review!

I Will Greet the Sun Again is a gorgeous and heartbreaking portrayal of a queer Iranian-American boy’s coming of age, set against the backdrop of 9/11. This is Khabushani’s debut but his prose is assured and he paints an extraordinarily vivid picture.

I loved the depiction of awkward adolescence, which alternates between cute and bumbling and more serious tones. The sensory details are so vivid that you feel like a fly on the wall. You can feel the slightly oppressive atmosphere of their LA flat where three teenage boys are sleeping, smell the chai in the kitchen, sense the ominous shift in the air when their father gets home. When the boys are whisked away to Iran by their father, furious at the effect America is having on his boys and wife, the atmosphere changes but is just as well written. The noisy chaos of the airport, the bedlam of the roads where it’s every driver for himself, the sleepy, peaceful ambience of their grandfather’s house, embodied by afternoon naps on the terrace and the scent of ripe figs (though things become less idyllic at night).

The book focuses more on father / son dynamics (content warning for childhood sexual abuse), and I did want a little more from their mother whose story would warrant a book of her own. Khabushani manages to deliver emotional gut punches and explore sensitive topics, but avoids the common pitfall of beating the reader over the head with trauma porn.

A moving debut that highlights those who feel they must suffer in silence, the ups and downs of brotherhood, the balance between multiple aspects of identity (queer, Muslim, Iranian-American) written in lovely prose. Out on 3rd of August in the UK!

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