this is such a fun continuation of this series. i loved the storyline and the ending was so fun. 
i loved the addition of the cafe, the characters from the first book having bigger role, and the addition of new characters. 

such a fun start to the series. i loved the beginning of the book having a dictionary and cultural references. i learned a lot, and spent the entire book starving because the food descriptions sounded so good!! 
the plot was also crazy and very similar to the finlay donovan series, which i loved! cant wait to continue the series! 

to be honest, i enjoyed this book despite what im about to say. sometimes you read a fun book and that’s enough for a four star rating. 

the characters were way less developed than in the first one, but i had fun still. it was a fun continuation of the first book. i just feel like there’s so many questions still? 

read this to my little cousin. she loved and so i loved. 

god there’s something so fun about a holiday novella. 

god i love this universe. 

this book was exactly what i expected, exactly what i wanted, and it had an epilogue. 
a very cute holiday read. 

I picked this one up for Z in my alphabet reading challenge and i am so glad i did. 
to start, this feels like it was written with a younger audience in mind (im 24, im thinking 13-16 year olds?) and isn’t very complex in the writing style. in some cases, this might be off-putting. in this case it hit even harder how young Zara is to be dealing with all of this. given the current political climate in america, reading this was very insightful, educational, and heartbreaking. 
definitely a well-worth it read (i listened to the audiobook), especially if you want to diversify your reading. 

also, after hearing about all the food throughout this book, i am desperate to try pakistani cuisine and will be looking into it IMMEDIATELY. 

definitely mind the tw/cw!!! 

i have… thoughts. 

i feel like i would’ve enjoyed this book a lot more if they weren’t step-cousins???? like why did this have to be almost related?? and why’d they kiss in front of grandma??? like idk i can’t get over that and it might’ve ruined the book for me.

i wanted to love this book, but i only liked it. there were some parts that i felt like were just for plot complexity and didn’t add anything to the story, and some parts i felt like dragged on for way too long. 
it was pretty predictable and the ending wasn’t my favorite.