'Tell Me How You Really Feel' is a cutesy, funny, coming-of-age queer teen romance. Rachel is an aspiring film student in her last year of high school. She's stuck on her last project, something is simply missing. It feels all wrong. She needs it to be perfect, her scholarship and her career depend on it. The way her peers, especially that girl Sana that always stares at her, see her depends on it. Sana wants to be a surgeon. At least she thinks she does. Actually, she's not so sure anymore. So she interviews for a medical fellowship in India. An interview that goes horribly. Somehow, she still can't get herself to put down her deposit for Princeton. Her family will be horribly disappointed. When Rachel nearly drops her equipment and Sana knocks her over trying to help, a camera cracks. So, the two end up working together.
This is adorably enemies to lovers, chock full of presumptious teenagers and awkward first romance. It talks about a lot of things that are huge when you're a teenager and even after. The insecurities being low-income in a high-income environment bring, what being sapphic when you don't 'look gay' can feel like, the pressure that your parents and family can put on you, sometimes without even realizing it, imposter syndrome. This book tackles all these things amazingly on a background of two awkward gay girls trying to get along.
The Audiobook is narrated by the author, who has an amazing voice. It's easy to listen to but in no way boring. It fits the story perfectly. I did have to speed the narration up a bit, but I think that's mostly because I'm generally a pretty fast reader.
I also loved the representation of different cultures/religions and of being stuck between two cultures in this book. I grew up in two different countries and while they are both western and perhaps a little less far apart than the ones in this book, a lot of the experiences, particularly with identity, are universal.
I loved Sana. She's a nice, funny character who had a lot of depth and underwent quite the rollercoaster during the book. She's not perfect and has a tedency to let her bad days get the best of her and ignore her problems instead of actually doing something about them. Her story wasn't repetetive, the way she thought about things didn't run in circles. Life caught up to her, and she learns to stand up for herself, to forgive and to be who she wants to be. These are things I value a lot in books that are meant to be read by teenagers.
Rachel... was not my favorite character. She held onto a lot of hate that was really just disguised insecurity. That's not a bad thing. A bad thing is her being consistently shitty to Sana and apologizing exactly once for exactly one particular thing. A thing that was really out of her control. Her thinking was repetetive and when it changes, it changes from one page to the other, suddenly. Because *gasp* being shitty has consequences. But again, the only thing she really apologizes for is something she couldn't really change. This character development was really just missing a little bit of something to me. It wasn't all bad, Rachel does learn to appreciate her team and to not take everything onto her own shoulders, but she still comes up with the solution all by herself, with a piece of recycled advice she gave someone else. Oof Idk, we kind of missed the point there, didn't we?
Another thing that bothered me were the amount of repetitions used in the writing. They weren't badly used but the sheer amount really decimated the effect they could have had.
Overall, this is a fun, cute teen romance with a lot of depth that just had a single character that I didn't vibe with at all. I recommend this book to teens starting at 15.

I will start off by saying that I have been a fan of Aminah's for years. I met her the day before her first book debuted and have been a fan ever since. I just love her writing. I love how real and complicated her characters are. I love that they're messy and feel so tangible and relatable. Every single time I've read one of her books, I've said “this one is my favorite for sure. This is my favorite book by Aminah”. And when I read Not the Girls You're Looking For and This is All Your Fault, I genuinely meant it. Let me say now though that Tell Me How You Really Feel is absolutely my favorite now.
You basically have me at any queer story featuring ladies but having it not only be from Aminah but just the way she renders Rachel and Sana, is just so wonderful. I'm obsessed with this book. I love the complexities in the relationships with all the characters. And I'm just going to adopt Diesel. Seriously. I take custody of this tall man boy child. He's a darling. Also I nominate myself as queer aunt to Sana and Rachel and I just love them so much.
Now it’s time to glow about the narration. Anyone who's read any of my audiobook reviews before or has talked to me about them, knows how picky I am with my narrators and my audiobooks. I live by audiobooks but that doesn't mean I don't have difficulties sometimes finding narrators I like reading books I want to read. When I saw this book pop up on here as being narrated by Aminah herself, I yelled. Having had the pleasure of meeting Aminah before, I knew that she has a lovely voice and I've always really enjoyed audiobooks that have been narrated by the authors. They always just bring so much heart and depth to their work because they completely understand these characters inside and out. I absolutely knew that Aminah would nail it in that regard but I had no idea how much I would just love her style. From the very beginning before the book even started, I was putting my hand on my chest and saying oh my gosh this is perfect. She was able to perfectly render both of her different leading ladies and a bunch of side characters to boot and wonderfully at the same time. I now nominate Aminah to just narrate more things. Is it going to happen? Probably not as she's a busy lady but I want her to do it all the same. I just very rarely click with a narrator that well. She was personable and had the right amount of youthfulness without being grating and she was just funny and brought the emotion and the depth when it was needed but her delivery just was so good. Not only do I just want to clutch this book to my chest because it's just so good but also so happy to have another audiobook I can recommend at a moment's notice. And recommend I will, frequently and often. I just can't think of a single thing I didn't love about the whole package.
I was completely hooked by this book, like I started reading this book at 7:00 p.m. one night and then finished the audiobook at noon the next day. I could not stop listening to it. I took the night off from watching the Olympics because I was so hooked (you guys don’t know how big a deal this is). 10/10 would recommend to everyone.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you to OrangeSky Media for granting me this e-galley audio galley but also for making the brilliant choice to have Aminah be the one to read this book! I'd been limiting for years that there wasn't an audiobook for this and if I known that this is what was coming, I would have been a lot more patient. This was well and truly worth the wait but also I am so grateful to not have two avoided until summer to read this and experience this wonderful audiobook. Seriously. What a stunner of a complete package. It's the queer opposites attract book of my dreams. Bless you Aminah for this, bless you .

Rep: lesbian indian MC, lesbian mexican MC


This was a very fun sapphic hate to love!
On the one hand we have good girl, A student Sana (who’s also a freaking cheerleader!!!) living with a single mum.
On the other we have a chaotic mess future filmmaker Rachel who is living with her single dad.
When Sana destroys Rachel’s camera equipment by accident and Rachel’s main actress runs off they are forced to work together. The only problem: Rachel hates Sana.

Sana doesn’t always have it easy with her family. Her grandparents are very traditionally Indian, very strict and a lot is expected from her. It doesn’t help that her mother got pregnant with her at the age of 17, resulting in getting kicked out, having to built her life and career from there on alone.

Rachel has her own problems at home, with her father constantly away and trying to make ends meet ever since her mother left them. She lives a life completely different to that of Sana, having to drive to school 2 hours each day and from there to work.

I really Sana her and and Rachel together! Rachel brings out Sanaa wilder side and she finally stood up to her family, telling them what she really wants.
Sana makes Rachel think a little more out of her box, encouraging her to have a little fun.

What bothered me a little was that Sanas story was a 1:1 Gilmore Girls retelling and there were only little to no surprises I’ve you’ve seen the show (like me).
Also the drama in the end was very unnecessary in my option, Rachel could have just told Sana what was going on.
I think the secondary characters could have used a little more work too.

All in all I really liked this though and will definitely read another book by this author.

I also really loved that the author narrates the audio herself. She has a great voice and no one knows better how her characters sound than her.
I always prefer for books with multiple POVs to have multiple narrators though because it makes it much more easy to distinguish which chapter it is.

~ This audiobook was provided by NetGalley in exchange of an honest review ~

❇ I LOVE LOVE LOVE BOOKS WITH SOME KIND OF DEADLINE ON IT!!;

❇ strong women;

❇ jewish and muslim rep/MCs;

❇ sapphic;

❇ At first the fact that the author narrated the audiobook made me skeptical but the more I listened to it, the more I feel in love with it (and Aminah Mae Safi's voice- please);

❇ my beautiful blonde golden retriever jock;

I can confidently say that I've already found a new favorite author this year!

~ a bit spoiler-y:

* The karaoke scene gave me Red White and Royal Blue flashbacks and I live for it;
* I ALWAYS wanted a helix piercing so this book just made it all worse;

❇ Quotes:

"Sana knew she would be rebuffed, she asked anyway. She was a one-woman masochism parade today"
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"Rachel had just sacrificed her dignity on the alter of cinematic production"
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"God, did beautiful people annoy Rachel"
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"Also she's really small, I feel like small people are really powerful"

"Says the guy who looks like he could smash a watermelon between his two bare hands"

"But I've gotta duck to go into buildings and I could never sneak around anywhere, I'm too tall"

"What a difficult life you must have had"
-
"For Rachel that had always been something outwardly about stepping onto a set, seeing all the props, and the set pieces and the camera equipament and thinking: I'm the god of this world"
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"Nothing like a conversation with Sana Khan to throw off the rhythm of her entire life"
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"It's better to screw up on your own terms than to screw up in somebody else's. It's better to have something you know it's yours, rather than what everyone tells you that you should want"
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"And now everywhere Sana touched was going up in flames like a storehouse of old ***Sally oid*** (idk how to write that) did before the flick of a single match. Arson had never been so wonderful, so dizzying"
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"Sana laughed. God, that laugh. Rachel could listen to it forever and probably still not get tired of the sound"
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"And logically, Sana knew she was in a room full of strangers singing a serenade to another girl, knew she was declaring herself in a big, public way, but she kept on singing, kept on staring at Rachel because right now they were the only two people who mattered, the only two people in the room. The only two people in the world. The only two lovers left alive"
-
"The nicest thing about life - and not the movies. Is that there's no curtains, no 'The End'. You can always write your own story, you can always start over and begin again. It doesn't have to make sense or go in a straight line it happens, you make it happen and while you don't get a do-over, if you're still alive and still kicking you do still have time ahead of you"
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"Sana Khan, you are awfully full of yourself"
"I know" Sanah took a step closer "I promise not to start a war if that helps"
"I can't say I blame you if you did" Rachel reached out and let her fingers throught Sana's ponytail. "Then, what do you want?"
Sana's breaths were coming rapidly but with a lightness that she never experienced before, there was no lingering awful tension, just hope grinding trought her, just the sensation that the best have yet to come "I want you to tell me how you really feel"
"Oh" said Sana "That's easy, I love you"

Aminah is not only a really good author but also a really good narrator! It was easy to identify the different dialogues and she also brings emotion.

I also really enjoyed the book and the plot, she managed to make both main characters likable, which is not an easy task.

Reviewing
Tell Me How You Really Feel
By Aminah Mae Safi

Tell Me How You Really Feel is a slow burning enemies to lovers romance novel featuring two young, equally annoying, protagonists. The heavy emotions and angsty feel stops this from being a true romantic comedy and ends leaves it feeling more like a coming of age novel. While there are many simple things to love about Safis storytelling, the characters and slow pace may have readers bailing before they reach the end.

⭐️⭐️💫2.5 stars for an fun concept that ended up dragging.

This was such a cute book. I really enjoyed listening to it. I was engaged the entire time while listening. I liked that SoCal was mentioned. As a fellow Californian, I love when my home state is mentioned in a book.

So thankful for the opportunity to have been able to listen to this audiobook!

From the beginning I was confused as to which character was speaking. The audiobook only had one narrator and they did not vary their voice to differentiate between the two main characters.

At the beginning I really liked Rachel and her rough around the edges personality, but that quickly dissolved when Sana starts spending time with her. I am not a fan of insta love, so this was disappointing. Where was the angst? The tension? The buildup? Not in this book.

My other gripe was that this was supposed to be enemies to lovers. At least that's what I thought going into this. Turns out their reason for "hating each other" is because they had a miscommunication ONE time. That doesn't really make someone your enemy. Their banter felt forced.

Ontop of that, I found the writing to this book to be extremely rudimentary. Everything was predictable from their actions to their dialogue. Safe to say I was bored while listening to this book. Their romance was not believable and very bland.

I absolutely loved this lgbt romance.

Such a great book with a solid storyline and great characters.

I eagerly look forward to reading more from this author.

A definite recommend

Tell Me How You Really Feel follows two women, Sana and Rachel, who have had a rivalry all throughout high school, but are now thrust together at the end of their senior years. Rachel is directing a Odyssey-inspired film project and struggles with finding the right vision (and actor) to pull it all together. Sana is an all-star cheerleader, bound for Princeton, who isn't really sure how to live up to the expectations of perfection while also figuring out what she really wants for herself.

In terms of the narration, I thought it was really cool how the author was telling the story herself. While this meant that the story was being told exactly the way it was intended to be, it also had a couple drawbacks. There were some moments (particularly between the 20% and 30% marks) where the audio quality shifted from clear to fuzzy. Also, it was hard for me to distinguish between Sana and Rachel at times because the way both of the girls were portrayed seemed exceptionally similar. I'm not sure if that's because of the narration or the writing itself, but it definitely took me out of the story a few times because I had to go back in the audiobook and play the conversation again to try to figure out whose point of view it was. Another contributing factor to that was how there wasn't a big enough pause between switches in narration. The narrator said the name of the person whose POV it was at almost the same pace as the actual words in the story itself, which made it especially confusing.

For the most part though, I really enjoyed listening to this book. It was fast-paced and easy to get through. I actually read over 75% of it in two days, which I really don't do a lot.

I thought the romance between the Sana and Rachel was super cute and I enjoyed following their journeys into seeing each other in a new light (mostly Rachel to Sana). I wasn't sure of the set-up at first, not going to lie, just because the grounds for their rivalry felt weak, but I also think that that's just how it is in life sometimes. Sometimes you do just hold an irrational grudge against someone without it really holding any solid basis. I think this is the reason why some people may not connect to Rachel as much as Sana, but I found the other parts of her motivations particularly drawing.

One of the things that made me excited to read Rachel's part of the story was her connections to Judaism. It wasn't a huge part of the book, but it made me so happy to see a non-Christian perspective (especially a Jewish one, as I am Jewish myself). Judaism functioned in this book in a very similar way as it does for me: something that is there, a source of community, but not necessarily a source of devotion. I really loved reading about the little ways that being Jewish impacted Rachel's perspective.

I am 80% sure some inspiration for Sana's life came from Gilmore Girls and honestly? I am so here for it. The rich grandparents, the mother who runs off after getting pregnant, then reconnects with the disapproving grandparents and allows them to pay for her daughter's schooling? Iconic. Also, Aminah Mae Safi mentioned something about Gilmore Girls in the acknowledgements, so I'll take that as a piece of proof.

Overall, I loved the talk and commentary on dreams. The final lessons that Sana and Rachel come to are so, so precious. Especially with Rachel, I loved the epiphany moment were she figured out how to pull together her film. I love everything it represents and think it was a very clever of the author to include a lesson that way.

This story was exactly what I expected it would be: a cute romance full of endearing character growth. I highly recommend picking up this story in your preferred format of reading to anyone looking for an easy sapphic romance.

Listening to the author read the book was so cute and nice and heartfelt. I loved it.
This story was involving, creative, inspired. So many wonderful things that I have to read it again some time soon. Can’t believe it took this long to read it.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is a sapphic "enemies" to lovers story for two highschool girls. Rachael, the girl who wants to make a movie but no one else ever seems to pull their weight, and Sana, the popular cheerleader who never understood why Rachael turned her down, and is dealing with her own decision between Princeton and a medical internship in India.

Overall, this story is really cute, especially the romance! The author put a lot of thought into the backstories and what else was going on besides the romance though, which I really appreciated. However, some of the problems were just miscommunication and that's just so annoying. Like Rachael's problem and Sana's problem could both have been solved by just telling the people involved the full story rather than doing this "piece by piece" breadcrumb thing that they did. I know their teens but come on.

The audiobook was narrated by the author, which is nice! But I think there's some problems that could have been solved with the audiobook:
1. Because there's just the author, she doesn't change her voice between characters so you can really easily miss when we switch points of view.
2. Going along with that, there's no real "mark" when we've switched POVs so we're just like, suddenly in a different character now! A mark of the chapter title or a clear "Rachael" would realy make that stand out.

Overall, I recommend this as a cute sapphic book and, if they fix those issues, the audiobook is good too!

This was a perfect sapphic book. There were complex and strong female characters and a cute golden retriever best friend.

I loved how the audiobook was narrated by the author, it felt like as a reader we really knew how she wanted us to read the book which made the experience more enjoyable.

I loved that the characters each had a clear goal that was not related to each other which helped create a strong plot outside of the love story.

I would absolutely recommend this book and audiobook.

(Got the audiobook from net galley)

This fell quite flat for me. I found the book to be longer than necessary and it dragged at the end.
I couldn't connect with neither Rachel nor Sana and as a consequence I just didn't care about their relationship.
I also feel like the narrator didn't help. I know the author narrated it herself, but both Rachel and Sana had the same tone which made it hard to know which perspective we were following at the moment.
Overall, this novel was simply not the sapphic romcom I was hoping for.

This was a really cute YA story. I enjoyed it, but I was not a huge fan of the narrator. I know it's the author, there was something that I just didn't like about her voice.

This was a delight, and I'm so glad I came across it on NetGalley. This is a Gilmore Girls-inspired sapphic YA enemies-to-lovers romance, with a lot of heart, plenty of sass, pop culture references and sympathetic characters. I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and it was generally a great narration, with just a couple of places the audio quality dropped.

Sana Khan is a cheerleader and a straight A student and Rachel Recht is a wannabe director who's obsessed with movies and ready to make her own masterpiece. Rachel hates Sana. Rachel was the first girl Sana ever asked out, but Rachel thought it was a cruel prank and has detested Sana ever since. The two get paired up to finish Rachel's movie after Sana tries to help Rachel but only ends up making more of a mess of things. Together they learn how to not only work together but get to know each other better.


Their relationship was so cute and their banter was so freaking funny I loved it. I loved to see how both characters grew into the person that they are meant to be and found someone along the way who knows who they really are. I just love cute YA romance books!

Tell Me How You Really Feel was SO CUTE!

I adored the depth to the main characters, Sana and Rachel and thoroughly enjoyed all the film references.

The exploration of femininity and the way it challenged Rachel’s negative perceptions of ‘pretty girls’. The parallel between Sana and Helen of Troy throughout the novel was so interesting and added a lot of background depth to her and successfully built up Rachel’s character development as well.

Their relationship made my little heart flutter, it was everything I could have wanted when I was in high school and I honestly love a bit of miscommunication sometimes with the enemies to lovers vibes. It was equal parts playful and angsty and I feel like it struck the perfect balance!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with the audiobook in exchange for my honest thoughts. The author, Amindah Mae Safi, did a wonderful job reading and I had a great time listening to her characters go about their lives in the way that she intended them to.

This was quite frankly one of the most refreshing YA contemporary romances I have recently encountered. The fact that it is not only sapphic but also includes quite a bit of diversity? Brava! I loved the depth of the story that was achieved mostly from the perspective of family dynamics and not necessarily the plot. I personally identify so much with Sona because she broke the mold of burnt out gifted kid in the way she knows how. I really can’t wait to read more from this author.

Thanks Netgalley for this ARC!

This book showed the feelings of being a teen/young adult and having to choose your life path. It showed different cultural backgrounds and faiths which is always nice to see and it explored how the perceptions of others can influence your behaviour as well as different family dynamics. I thought all the characters were well fleshed out and showed how messy real life is despite how it may look from the outside.