Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: You Truly Assumed

Author: Laila Sabreen

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: 3 Black Muslim female MCs, Hijab Wearing MC, 2 sapphic couples mentioned as side characters

Recommended For...: young adult readers, contemporary, social justice, Muslim, Black Muslims

Publication Date: February 8, 2022

Genre: YA Contemporary Social Justice

Recommended Age: 13+ (micro-aggressions, terrorism, racism, hate crimes, Islamaphobia, racism, language, romance, religion)

Explanation of Above: The book is a deep dive into how 3 Black Muslim teenage girls deal with the public backlash during the aftermath of a terrorist attack in which the bomber had an Arabic name (even though he was said to not be Muslim), so the book contains a lot of mentions and showings of micro-aggressions, racism, hate crimes, Islamaphobia, and racism against them. The book also has some instances of cursing and slight romance with two of the main characters and their respective partners. There are also a showing of Christian prayer and some Muslim prayer scenes. While I enjoyed both showings and I loved the insight into the Muslim religion, I do know that religion can be a bit of a trigger for some people due to religious trauma, especially with the Christian religion.

Publisher: Inkyard Press

Pages: 352

Synopsis: Sabriya has her whole summer planned out in color-coded glory, but those plans go out the window after a terrorist attack near her home. When the terrorist is assumed to be Muslim and Islamophobia grows, Sabriya turns to her online journal for comfort. You Truly Assumed was never meant to be anything more than an outlet, but the blog goes viral as fellow Muslim teens around the country flock to it and find solace and a sense of community.

Soon two more teens, Zakat and Farah, join Bri to run You Truly Assumed and the three quickly form a strong friendship. But as the blog’s popularity grows, so do the pushback and hateful comments. When one of them is threatened, the search to find out who is behind it all begins, and their friendship is put to the test when all three must decide whether to shut down the blog and lose what they’ve worked for…or take a stand and risk everything to make their voices heard.

Review: I extremely loved this book! This will be one of my forever favorites and a book that will stick with me for life. I absolutely loved the use of multiple POV and each of the main characters had very unique voices. The characters are well developed and the world building is simple but well done. The book was extremely well written and I’m having issue finding words to explain how much I loved this book. Personally, I will say to skip my review and read through the other reviews by Muslim readers, such as my friend Roha (I will have a link here to her review on my blog), because I think their words on the read are more important than anything I could ever come up with. I think the closest I can explain how powerful this book is, is to explain a personal story of when the book gave me my first reader pause. It was when Sabriya is narrating and her mother is telling her that she will be needed to volunteer because her father’s job was hosting this volunteer effort to help the families affected by the terrorist attack. She explains that she has to do it because her father worked so hard to get the promotion to his current job and not volunteering will reflect badly on her father. And that gave me my first pause because, as someone whose father was also promoted, I didn’t have to do any of that. Granted, it wasn’t a government job he held but the difference still remains. I didn’t have to work any events or volunteer my time to ensure my dad looked good to his bosses because my father is white and so am I, whereas the main character in this book had to and then had to endure Islamaphobia directed at her and multiple instances of micro-aggressions because she wanted to make her father look good to his boss. I will also say that my second pause was when, I think it was Sabriya again?, was asking herself “what is his name and what is his religion?” because that is an unfortunate reality so many POC and/or Muslims deal with when news of a terrorist attack happens because unfortunately if the attacker is POC and/or Muslim or anything other than White and Christian, the whole community will see an increase in hate crimes against them whereas if the attacker is white the narrative will be about how the white attacker had a “poor home life” and that will be that. Honestly, when the tagline said “thought-provoking” I didn’t think that it would have me lying in bed at midnight staring at my ceiling wondering how to process and proceed with this new knowledge. This book did SO WELL to put the thoughts and feelings of Muslims and POC into words and while the plots are very simple, it’s the blog posts and the small moments like what I pointed out up above that really drive home the important messages of this book. If you never read another book I recommend, I highly HIGHLY recommend this book and I urge you to read this one.

The only issue I really had with the book is that I wanted a little more time with Zakat and Farah. I feel like we didn’t get enough with them whereas we got a lot with Sabriya. I also think some of the timelines in the book didn’t line up exactly. There was some future events mentioned here and there in chapters with other characters and then it would happen in a present tense in the other chapters. It wasn’t a huge confusion though and the book can be read as is without issue.

Verdict: The highest of highly recommended reads.