Karina Ahmed is horrified when she’s asked to tutor her school’s resident bad boy, Alistair “Ace” Clyde. If her parents weren’t on an extended trip to their native country if Bangladesh they would surely forbid it. A Muslim girl spending time alone with a white boy? Definitely not allowed! Yet, as Karina gets to know Ace, she finds him to be intriguing, with many surprising facets to his personality. Torn between her family’s expectations and her growing attraction to Ace, will Karina be able to tell her parents the truth about what she really wants to do with her life? As she counts down the days until her parents return, Karina knows she has a decision to make. This coming-of-age story is a perceptive, insightful work of young adult romance. Note: Although there is not explicit sexual content, this book does contain profanity.

I literally don’t know, y’all. I love Tashie but this book was a little bit ridiculous at times, to the point I was choking on my own laughter at 3am. On the other hand though...this book did make me feel things, it was amusing and kept me reading.

I definitely enjoyed my time with it, but I wouldn’t say it’s an amazing book, either. I loved the gen-z elements and was kinda digging Ace and Karina at some point, but in the beginning it was just...ridiculous. The only correct word for me.

Conclusion? This book kinda felt like some fever dream and I’m very, very confused. If you’re looking for a cheesy story with Wattpad vibes that also has a serious side, check it out though!

As a bookworm, I've always looked for books with characters who had a similar culture and identity like me ~ and I've FINALLY found one. Counting Down With you by Tashie Bhuiyan made me feel so seen. The book features a Bangladeshi teenager, and I've never felt so represented in a book before. Words will never be enough to express how much Tashie's book means to me. 🧡

Counting Down With You in a nutshell, is a love letter to us Bangladeshi girls. While reading the book, I marked down so many relatable quotes and situations ~ I literally wanted to scream out "OMG I FEEL THE SAME WAY TOO! " Karina has my whole heart. I loved reading her story and walking with her on her journey towards self-discovery. Her friendship + blossoming relationship with Ace was all sorts of adorable. 🤧🥺 Both of them are my babies and I want to hug them tight for life.

The Bangladeshi representation was perfectly written. 💯 My heart melted seeing the familiar words and sayings from Bengali households, I legit cried. I connected with Karina's issues with anxiety from the very beginning of the story. I empathized with her, and cheered her throughout Counting Down With You. Her relationship with her parents mirrored some of the situations I faced too ~ so yeah, I am so, so thankful for this book.

Guys, let me tell you something - nothing feels better than being an own-voices reviewer who gets to tick all the representation boxes for a book. I'm so glad I got the chance to review this book early. It made my year. I'll keep recommending this book forever. Please read it asap!!!

5 stars +++ = Best of the Best

Outstanding! I absolutely adored this. The characters are fantastic. I really felt for Karina and Ace both in their family situations. There's tons of heart in this as well as plenty of laugh-out-loud moments - and at least one moment that made me want to stand up and cheer. The story asks a lot of complicated questions, especially in light of the cultural pieces of the story. This would be an exceptional choice for a book club or discussion group. Highly recommend! (Language, TW: panic attacks. parental shaming)

I don’t find myself reading too much YA but this delightful book made me want to change that. There’s so much I want to say about this book that I’m a little afraid my review might be all over the place. But before I start in on the actual bones of the review, I just want to address one thing really quickly: I related HARD to this book. Maybe it’s because of the similarities in our cultural upbringing – Karina Ahmed is a Bangladeshi American Muslim and I’m an Indian born, American raised Bengali. There were parts of this book that felt almost uncomfortably like I was looking at my own past and things that were also slightly different, like our religion. Regardless of how hard I personally related to this book, I strongly believe there are themes in this book that are universal and I would argue that anyone could find things in this book that are relevant to their own lives and experiences, regardless of their cultural background. Now that we have that out of the way, lets get on with the review.

In an attempt to organize my review into some semblance of cohesion, I’ve decided to break it down by the relationships that Karina has with the different people in her life. They all play an important role in who she is, who she wants to be, and ultimately, who she strives to become.

Karina and Ace

Alistair “Ace” Clyde is the perfect counterpunch to dutiful, good girl Karina, the typical rich bad boy, complete with the quintessential leather jacket and a devil may care attitude to match. Where Karina is constantly striving to please her parents and live up to their expectations of her, Ace has made it his life’s mission to do the complete opposite and live down to his father’s lofty standards. When he finds himself struggling in his English class, an unlikely alliance forms between the quiet, studious Karina and the rebellious, charismatic Ace.

At first glance, they seem to be polar opposites: Karina is all about doing what’s expected, serious, filled with anxiety at disappointing her parents and Ace is all about having fun and determined to live life on his own terms. But there’s more to meets the eye with these two, both of whom are really living reactionary lives in response to their relationships with their respective parents.

And the unlikely romance that blooms between the two is almost ridiculously sweet even when there’s an underlying sense of inevitable doom. Ace, as Karina puts it, woos her, with tutoring sessions over pastries, trips to book stores where he buys her stacks of books, a romantic dinner he cooks for her with the help of his mother, and in one memorable scene, a stargazing date on the back of a pickup truck. My past 16 year old past self would have fallen head over heels in love with Ace’s particular brand of woo and to be honest, my present day 41 year old self was equally charmed. All of these scenes are undercut by the tension that really permeates this whole book: that of Karina’s domineering, overly critical parents. But more on them later.

For me, a good romantic pairing often involves characters who bring out the best in each other, who inspire each other to be brave and do great things and in this, Karina and Ace excel. Each of them makes the other better, stronger, and willing to go after what they really want, whether it be their future dreams or their desire to just be together. While the relationship originally began with Karina tutoring Ace in English, Ace proves himself to be a worthy hero, a soft, nurturing caretaker, not necessarily insisting on slaying Karina’s dragons for her but rather, enabling and encouraging her to slay them on her own. And when all seems lost for Karina, it’s Ace who rides to the rescue with words of hope and wisdom.

"We’re only sixteen, Karina. There’s still so much future ahead of us. It’ll be better. You just have to hold on to the strength and bravery I know you already have."

That it’s Ace who gives her the strength and courage to fight for her own happiness is what makes him such a good hero in my book. And the fact that he doesn’t just storm in to do it for her but rather gently pushes her to do it for herself is what makes him a great one.

Karina, Nandini, and Cora

One of the things I absolutely loved about this book was the strong female friendships Karina has with her two best friends. I adored the interaction between them. As I said before, I don’t read a whole lot of YA and sometimes, the characters can come off as overly precocious but here, the three of them hit the perfect notes, varying between girlish enthusiasm and drama queen with bouts of unexpected teenage wisdom that always startle older adults* into realizing the next generation has things well in hand. (*It’s me, I’m the older adult). I love how they always had Karina’s back, the unwavering support but also the moments of disbelief and eye-rolling over Karina’s obliviousness when it came to Ace. They struck the perfect balance of humor and sensitivity and love and it felt very much like the friendships I’ve had in my own life.

Karina and her family

This might well be the most difficult part of the book to deal with. The book starts with Karina’s parents jetting off to Bangladesh to visit her mom’s family while Karina and her younger brother stay home under the care of their paternal grandmother.

The scenes between Karina and her parents resonated on a deeply personal level that sometimes felt almost intrusive and uncomfortable, as if the author had pulled pages out of the story of my own life. As many south Asian children of immigrants can attest, we are brought up with great expectations for our lives…and great guilt if we dare to follow our own path. Karina dreams of pursing a major in English while her parents have dictated that she will get into a premed program and become a doctor. And when she dares to voice her own dreams to her parents, she is met with anger and harsh words calling her a disappointment and selfish. The pressure Karina feels from her parents lead to her struggling with anxiety and she copes by counting down from 10 to 1. The scenes where she suffers anxiety attacks and has to claw her way back out of them feel almost painfully real and so well done that at a certain point, Karina’s panic became my own. But I could also understand her parents even if I disagreed vehemently with them. The idea of immigrant parents sacrificing all for the sake of a better life for their kids is a song I know all too well and Karina’s bone-deep desire to just make her parents happy and proud is also very, very familiar to me.

"Everything they’ve asked of me, I’ve given. I’ve given and I’ve given, and I continue to give. But it’s never enough. There’s never a limit to what they ask of me."

While Karina’s relationship with her parents is shaky and full of strife, she does have some family in her corner, including her beloved Dadu (her paternal grandmother) and eventually, her younger brother, Samir. She finds solace and unexpected support from her grandmother which felt strangely and beautifully reminiscent of my own relationship with my late grandmother. It was full of tenderness and unconditional love and also, reading about her grandmother constantly show her love via food was the most on brand thing and made me laugh.

Karina’s younger brother Samir also brought an interesting dynamic to the family relationships. First of all, it’s worth noting that I am an only child and therefore, this was one of the few parts of the book that didn’t personally resonate for me but still, I found it to be accurate. As a boy, Samir gets away with far more and has far more freedoms than his older sister, which seems pretty plausible in a paternalistic society. Their parents are incredibly proud of Samir’s achievements while simultaneously criticizing Karina’s failings and it seems inevitable that Karina feels a deep sense of resentment towards her brother. Samir, in the grand tradition of young teenage boys, seems completely clueless to all of the family dynamics and the favoritism he’s showed. But to his credit, when Karina finally opens up to him about her feelings of despair, he doesn’t blow her off or accuse her of being dramatic, he believes her and he supports her.

I know the book community talks a lot about why representation matters in books. This book, more than any other I’ve read in recent memory, made me feel seen. It made me feel like my lived experiences weren’t unusual and trivial, that even though I may have felt isolated and ostracized at times, I was never truly alone. And I think those are themes that are really universal, regardless of the circumstances of one’s life. In the course of this book, Karina learns that her dreams are valid and that her life is her own and she learns, with a little help from her family and friends, how to stand up for herself and live her own life. And that’s a theme anyone can relate to.

laughed. I squealed. I cried. I think I experienced the whole spectrum of human emotion over the course of Counting Down with You, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. It was my first 5-star read of the year, and with how high it set 2021’s bar, it may stay that way. I can’t believe I got my hands on it early, so please, forgive the exceptionally long review, because I am just elated to get to share this book with you now.

I have a deep and unending love for fake dating novels, but not since Analee, In Real Life have I truly been left stunned by one. Counting Down with You stunned me from its very first page. Bhuiyan’s heartfelt Author’s Note at the beginning of the book describing it as a “love letter to young brown girls” rang clear and true throughout this entire book, and is probably one of the most informative and touching author’s notes I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It is so important to see Counting Down with You as reflective of individual and personal experiences, and Bhuiyan’s voice is so strong. I obviously can’t speak to the Bangladeshi-Muslim representation here, but it’s clear that this book is somewhat representative of her own experiences. Stating that kind of positionality, knowing you can’t represent everyone and making that clear to your readers while also noting how important it is to simply represent yourself and those who may see themselves embedded in your story, is vital to ongoing pushes for diversity in Young Adult literature. I can’t wait to see what Bhuiyan does next, because a debut from a young author that is this striking and moving is nothing short of a feat.

But now for the book itself which is, obviously, the star of the show here. The word that kept reverberating through my mind as I read it was tender. Just so, so tender. I loved how tender the relationship between Karina and Ace was, how tender, supportive, and touching the relationship between Karina and her grandmother was, between Karina and her friends, and so importantly, the tenderness and kindness Karina learned to treat herself with. Even if Karina’s intermittent poetry was kind of objectively cringe, it was real and sincere. And though her experiences with anxiety look nothing like my own learning to care for yourself through anxiety is no easy task—finding others who treat you with the same care can be even harder.

Ace and Karina’s relationship was so—once again—tender, but also strikingly supportive and outwardly mature. I loved that Karina set her boundaries, and when Ace crossed them, he didn’t just apologize. He actively learned and worked to not make the same mistakes again. He understood the consequences. Their realtionship was one built on true and full trust, which is not something I’ve seen a lot in fake dating novels—only replicated to this degree in Analee. I loved Ace so much, wholeheartedly and genuinely. He was perfectly written. I loved how many layers he had, how he and Karina slowly peeled back their own and each other’s together. It was touching to watch them grow. And I mean, what is there to even say about fake dating at this point? It’s fake dating. It’s genuinely perfect.

In terms of Karina herself, not only was I struck by how much she and her friends actually sounded like real teenagers do right now (which is very much a direct result of this book being by a young author), I was struck by her strength, her conviction, her growth, her voice, the happiness she chose for herself and those she loved. I was intitally surprised by how long this was for a book of this kind, but I understood so quickly why it needed the almost 500 pages. There was true movement and development on display in this novel.

Ultimately, I just cannot rant and rave enough about Counting Down with You. It is an astounding debut and a beautiful story. I hope everyone reads it, and I know that everyone who does will love it. And if you somehow manage to hate it, then I’m straight up hunting you for sport on my private island.

Counting Down With You by Tashie Bhuiyan was a wonderful book. It's not often I find a book that feels so familiar. Having grown up in India, stories like this were common to me, but this is the first time I've ever found it in a book and that feels magical to me.

This book tells the story of Karina, a teenager growing up in a typical Bangladeshi household. Her life is pretty much already planned by her parents and she's drowning. Her only escape is her poetry. When her parents decide to visit Bangladesh for about a month, she finally feels like she can breathe again.

But things start to change when she's assigned to tutor her school's typical bad boy, Alistair "Ace" Clyde. Ace is stifled in different ways. At first, their relationship is tumultuous. But once they start to really see one another, feelings emerge and Karina begins to question whether or not she's willing to really fight for what she wants or continue to follow the plans set for her by her family.

Even though I grew up in India, I was one of the lucky few who was given the freedom to do what I wanted and pave my own path in life. But I saw too many people in the same situation as Karina. People who were forced to give up on their own dreams and desires for the sake of keeping their parents happy.

In a lot of ways, this was a more extreme version of life that happens far too often in the real world. But it was also a hopeful one. Karina's story is one that resonates but also inspires because it's real and raw.

Her love story with Ace is just one part of this absolutely wonderful story. Their relationship was sweet and adorable. It acts as a catalyst for change in Karina's life and in a lot of ways, Ace's support gives her the courage to fight for what she wants. And Karina gives Ace what he needs to believe in himself.

Overall, this story is about struggles and hardships of growing up in an overly traditional, Asian household, but it also manages to be optimistic in the way it emanates joy and love. It's one of those stories that I didn't even know I needed to see on paper, but I'm so glad I did.

I would definitely recommend this book if you're looking for a heartwarming YA romance. But especially if you're an Asian kid just trying to find your place in the world. It's absolutely worth reading.

4/5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

When I heard about Counting Down With You I preordered the book right away. A romance based on Hades and Persephone's is always my favorite thing. Sadly I didn't really see the story with them, more than her having strict parents and him having a bad relationship with his family.

Nonetheless, I loved the sweet romance. They are 16, young and finding love for the first time, and that's always exciting, so I was rooting for them from the beginning.

Ace is sweet and caring, something we may see little of in young adult books, since we always love to see a bad boy. One with a heart of gold is precious, but a bad boy who is actually a cute nerd is even better.

Karina is adorable. She's a little bit all of us, and she has a passion for reading, just like me. When I learned that this book was about anxiety and love I couldn't wait to read it, feeling even closer to her.

I personally think Karina should go to the psychologist, since anxiety can be a bad disorder, and it definitely doesn't go away with love and friendship.

In general, it's a book I enjoyed, and I could see myself in her shoes, something I always love about a book.

I know there were some concerns about representation in the arcs that was being addressed before publication, so I will not speak to that part since I haven’t seen the changes.

Ultimately, I struggled with getting into this book. The writing felt very simplistic, filled with so much telling not showing, and the characters and situations were immature. Overall, it felt like reading fan fiction, which isn’t inherently bad, but not what I expected from this type of published book. I will not be posting this review publicly as it was not a final copy and may have been changed.

This book definitely has to be one of my favourites of this year !! It’s adorable and emotional and personally, such a relatable book overall. I loved how anxiety was portrayed here and even the subject of parental pressure which a lot of teens face. I finished this book so fast that i immediately wanted to reread it because it was just THAT GOOD. I love the fake dating trope and it was so well done in this book. The writing style is simplistic and easy to read and very immersive as well. Highly recommend picking this one up.

This is a sweet YA book about a Muslim girl Karina who has much anxiety along with trying to please her ultra-conservative parents. The parents go to Bangladesh for a month. The girl tutors a boy in her high school English class and things begin to happen.
I enjoyed reading this book, especially because of the suspense on what would happen when the parents return from their trip. However, I was bothered by how often the word "kill" was used in bantering with friends. "I'll kill you." "My parents would kill me" "I'm going to kill her." You get the picture. I did a word search for "kill" on my kindle, and it showed up 30 times. The word "murder" shows up ten times and "die" 26 times. Musing: perhaps that's why Karina has so much anxiety. Anyway, that's the reason why I give the book four stars instead of five.
There is also poetry in the book.

Counting Down with You is everything a teen romance should be. The characters are juvenile and messy but the writing itself is none of those things. The plot is smart as the author effortlessly weaves together a fake-dating trope, a ticking time-bomb, family expectations, and mental health to create a message of strength many of us would have appreciated hearing in high school.

Despite all the heavy issues resting on our main protagonist’s shoulders, the dialogue shared between Karina and Ace is sweet like candy.

Their fake-dating rouse is a cute sentiment instantly dissolved by their ridiculous chemistry and passionate discussions. Ace is the next boy in a long line of unrealistic fictional boyfriends to steal my heart with his scenery-chewing ways and swoon-worthy lines. But he would be nothing without Karina’s ability to play off him so effortlessly and her passion for him to see what she sees in the written word. Together they have a love language that is soft and wholesome, and banter that is as sharp as it is resourceful — the perfect combination.

I especially liked how this book doesn’t force Karina’s relationship drama to fuel the main conflict of the story when there are pools of depth with her family to explore instead. Her cultural and parental expectations are the center focus of this story’s building conflict and that allows the sweeter moments to stay grounded in a reality many readers can relate to, especially ones that grew up in a similar situation as Karina. I can’t speak to the Muslim representation in this book, so I can only hope these aspects of the story were handled as carefully as the rest of the plot.

This book is charming, cute, and brimming with teen angst that elevates the deeper parts of this romance, rather than dragging it down with unnecessary surface-level conflict. Karina’s story of intoxicating young love and academic-fueled flirtations will make you smile over and over again.

Counting Down With You hit so close to home - I'm sure many of my teen patrons will relate to Karina and her struggles. Karina was a wonderfully nuanced character, the love story was super sweet, her friends were the best, and I loved her relationship with her grandmother. I was so invested in her journey! I'll definitely be handing this to my teens this summer.

One of my favorite books of the year! So sweet, fun, timely, and absolutely perfect. I love this book! Highly recommend!

When Karina agrees to tutor Ace Clyde in English she's thinking about her activities looking good on her college transcripts not falling in love. But with her parents going to Bangladesh for a month, and time ticking down to choosing a college where her parents expect her to become a doctor when her passion for English and poetry in no way factor into their expectations of her future. Karina has a month to figure things out and decide if she can give up to fit in or fight for her future. This one hits differently when you are the child of immigrant parents. I have never had to fight my parents over my college major but the expectations when your parents are new immigrants, there have been sacrifices made to help establish a foothold in a new country and parents expect certain things it deeply resonates personally. This was a wonderful read that brought back some feelings.

This book was one major heart squeeze and I loved that I had the chance to read it. Everything from the anxiety rep to the parental pressure, to the cross cultural differences was executed so well and I am thrilled that all of these incredible topics are being discussed in YA novels these days. Bhuiyan nailed it and I am genuinely upset I didn't have a book like this when I was in high school. I do think some phrases were overused a bit ("chaotic" and "it's not that deep" being the two that stick out) but I also can understand that these are High Schoolers and I'm definitely not trendy anymore, so maybe those things make sense.

Regardless, I cried my way through the last six chapters and I feel privileged to have been given the chance to enjoy this journey. I can't wait to see what comes from Bhuiyan next.

Counting Down With You by Tashie Bhuiyan

Overview: Karina's life has been extremely regimented by her parents and their many, many rules. She hasn't lived much of a normal teen life at all. And then her parents leave for Bangladesh for a month. Left in the hands of her much more lenient grandmother, Karina starts testing the boundaries of her own life. Ever the studios, though, one of her main activities becomes tutoring Ace at the request of her English teacher. When Ace ropes her into a fake dating plot to maintain his slacker image with his family, it's clear that the feelings both ways are most definitely not fake. But while Karina's life is her own for now, there's the massive question of how she'll handle this new life she's built when her parents return. Overall: 4

Characters: 4 I like Karina and Ace. They're your pretty classic good girl/bad boy mash-up. Karina is studious and a rule follower. She's battling between her love (and aptitude) for English and her parent's designs for her to study medicine. She's never defied them before on much of anything, but she's staring down setting a path for the rest of her life. Karina has a younger brother who's afforded far more freedom and two best friends who are supportive but also try to get her out of her comfort zone as much as possible.

Ace's family is rich. Not just mildly rich but gated mansion, every family member has multiple cars rich. While Ace's brother is the preppy standout of the family, headed off the Yale, Ace always wears a leather jacket and loves to cut class. But, of course, Karina is able to unearth his heart of gold as he remembers her coffee order (better than her best friend) and loves astronomy and playing piano. He's not as bad as he wants everyone to believe. And his own little rebellion against his family sometimes gets in the way of what he actually wants.

Plot: 3 We have the fake dating/relationship plot and then the character development path. My issue is that after the first third, I started to lose my will to keep reading. I've been super super busy and wasn't able to just read the whole book in one sitting (I think I probably would've liked it better if I had), so I had to make time for it, and I eventually struggled to want to. The dating plot moves a bit slow, and it's a bit Groundhog Day in stretches. This makes sense given the totally monotonous life I lived in high school, but it doesn't make for the most energetic plot. Because the book takes place over a month long span, we really go day by day with the characters.

The main conflict that drives this plot is the will they/won't they of the dating thing (it's abundantly clear that they will) and then the growing pains of their relationship. They see through each other easily and realize they have basically the same problem from different angles. Karina is going to live a life she doesn't want in science because she doesn't want to disappoint her parents and ruin her image. Ace is going to end up with a life he doesn't want because he's refusing to apply to Yale- or college at all- to make a point to his dad. They're both frustrated with each other for not just doing the right thing for themselves, and yet, they can't do it for themselves. I really love this conflict and working through it on the page because it's so true to the struggle that so many teens in high school go through. I just wish that the plot had moved a bit quicker and maybe skipped some days to summarize.

Writing: 4 YA books from Gen Z are going to be so incredible. I love that we have a new generation of YA writers coming up who were just teens, who share a generation with the audience they're writing for. Authors do their best to imitate teens, but there's something magical about reading a book from someone who doesn't have to try to get what it's like to be a teen today. The texting conversations felt effortlessly real, and the book just had a certain dimension of understanding that really fueled the bulk of my enjoyment of this story. Bring on the Gen Z YA take-over.

I loved this book.

I have my master’s degree in Psychology. I know all about generalized anxiety disorder and all it’s variations. I can tell you the DSM definition. This portrayal of anxiety made it less clinical and more human. Allowed to hear the inner dialogue of her anxiety, and see how it manifested in her actions.

Also, I loved the character of Ace, and how he modeled how to support someone with anxiety. Ace was patient and reassuring. He never pressured her to do anything, and respected her boundaries.

This book really opened my mind, help understand my students with anxiety better, and my students with immigrant parents. I would highly recommend this title

My gosh, this book is utterly wonderful!

Karina Myra is sixteen-years-old and used to doing everything she can to meet her parents expectations of her, but when they leave for a month in Bangladesh to visit family she has her first chance at figuring out herself, for herself. In her corner she has her Dadu, her best friends Chloe and Nandini, her younger brother Samir, and she meets Ace when he needs help with English tutoring.

Counting Down With You is emotional and beautiful, and all around a wonderful read. I loved the friendships, but I also loved the bond she has with her younger brother. Things aren't always perfect, but the way they're there for each other, and especially the ways her Dadu supports her warmed my heart so much.

I also really enjoyed the ways Karina's identity is shaped by her Bangladeshi heritage and being Muslim. I can't speak to the rep as a white Jew, but I did love all the ways her identity was incorporated into the story.

One of my favorite elements was Karina's anxiety; I found it extremely relatable and at times overwhelming in how much I related. She has had to find coping methods that work for her while not feeling able to admit her anxiety to her parents. Her friends are super supportive, and even help her look for more coping strategies for when her standard (counting down from ten) isn't as effective. Her anxiety is very much a part of her, but it's not the point of the story, nor is it a point of conflict.

As to the romance that develops between Karina and Ash, it was so precious. I loved how supportive of her he is, as well as how she helps him find his own strengths and courage. The ways in which they help one another be braver and reach out for their dreams was so wonderful to see.

All around, I'm pretty confident this is one of my favorite books of 2021. It's so warm and full of emotions. The friendships and the anxiety felt so real, and the romance is one of the sweetest I've read. I highly recommend this book, and I"m looking forward to future books from Tashie Bhuiyan!

I received a copy of Counting Down with You by Tashkent Bhuiyan from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Yes to the fake dating tropes! Karina, a Bangladeshi teenager, and Ace, the school’s resident bad boy finds themselves drawn together when the two are paired up together for the former to tutor the latter in English. This fun, sweet, and charming YA novel has all the right ingredients for the teen romance read while also dealing with anxiety and the complications that can arise with being a part of a family that has high expectations of you. I thought it was all approached in such a wonderful way in this story - taking the time to be sweet so you can really root for Karina and Ace, while also giving the right amount of gravity of the situation as Karina lives with her anxiety and family’s expectations.

Thank you to Inkyard Press for the e-galley.