This was a beautifully written coming-of-age story from a perspective of a queer Pakistani-American girl named Razia. We get to experience her through different stages of her life as she learns her identity, written in a stream-of-conscious and almost poetic way.

Thank you Flatiron Books and NetGalley for this arc in exchange for my honest review!

I am a sucker for beautiful writing. And in this book, Bushra Rehman’s is extraordinary. She writes poetically and sees the world in a creative way, leading to some stunning lines and fascinating musings. Through her book’s main character, Razia, Rehman explores the concept of separate selves — too Western, too Pakistani; too straight, too queer; too rebellious, too obedient — in an inherently readable way.

But I gave this book three stars.

Somehow, as lovely as the writing is, it came across a little impersonal and disconnected. It felt almost as if I were reading a series of flittering vignettes, a chain of scattered memories. I wanted more of a solid plot line running through the book to make me feel more tied to the story itself. And that means the ambiguous ending didn’t feel earned and brought the book to a screeching halt.

I guess good writing isn’t my end-all, be-all, after all.

Rehman’s masterful prose, peppered with Urdu phrases, evokes rich emotional and social nuances regarding a particularly sensitive divide between generations in a community of immigrants trying to hold on to their culture even as they make new lives for themselves in a new country.

Full Starred Review: https://www.booklistonline.com/Roses-in-the-Mouth-of-a-Lion-/pid=9767585

More like 3.5 stars—this had a pretty slow, though entertaining, beginning and felt a little rushed at the end....I could've done with a few chapters tbh!!!

First off, I LOVED this book. It's everything. The writing is unique, original, quirky, and divine. The story is engrossing and gives us great detail on a young Pakistani girl's life in America. It's a coming-of-age story set in Corona. Rehman's descriptions are so vivid that we almost feel that we're in the neighborhood.

I hope this book gets wide readership. It is well-deserving of it.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I will be singing its praises.

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a queer coming-of-age story that beautifully paints the childhood of Razia Mirza, a gifted, curious, and brave teenager learning about herself, her community, and the bond that women share. Razia grows up in Corona, Queens, surrounded by her Muslim American community. When she gets into Stuyvesant, a prestigious Manhattan high school, she is enlivened by the possibilities outside of her neighborhood. In exploring her queer identity, she must make a decision between her family and her faith, and her true self.

Each chapter reads like a short story, carrying you through Razia’s life in three sections, or “books”. Rehman finds the beauty and nuance in queer adolescence with careful and loving prose. For me, this book celebrated all the wonderfulness and nuance of being a young girl and the way one sees others and the world; full of possibility.

Thank you to Flatiron books and NetGalley for this eARC!

Set in Queens, NY, in the summer of 1985, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman is a resounding exploration of Razia's coming of age experience as a young Pakistani Muslim-American trying to reconcile who she is versus who her community expects her to become.

“In Islam we teach that women are jewels. We are precious and strong. We’re so precious, we must be hidden from the world, as jewels are hidden first in the earth and then in safes. When we flaunt our bodies, we become less precious. We shame ourselves and our families.” The Aunty’s logic didn’t work for me. What about men and their responsibility to not stare at women? No one ever enforced that rule. Was I the only who thought it was unfair?

Raiza is a brilliant protagonist with the courage and grit that it takes to figure out the answers to the most difficult questions life can ask. Journeying along with Raiza was a homage to girlhood and growing up in NYC as well as a love letter to all the girls who find safety and comfort in our love of books. Raiza’s friendships play a major role in her journey and as someone who loves strong supporting characters this aspect was one of my favorite parts of the narrative. The ending was completely unexpected and left me feeling both proud of Raiza and saddened that she had to make such a drastic choice. But it be like that sometimes- especially when we are fighting for our own survival. I love this story and it's been a while since I've dreamed of a sequel but a girl can at least dream!

Thank you to the publisher and author for the E-arc copy.

I loved it. Razia is a Muslim-American teen. She lives in Queens and it's the 80's. I love stories representing a girl coming into her own, figuring out who she is, what is important to her and the hurdles along the way. No matter the culture, generation, sexuality, location; I love to read it.

This was a lovely coming of age story, exploring identity and sexuality. I loved listening to the audiobook and enjoyed the story.

(Written for NPR's Books We Love; please see the link.)

With her second novel, Bushra Rehman returns to the time, setting and protagonist of her first: 1980s Corona, Queens, in New York City, and Razia Mirza, a Pakistani American girl. As before, this narrative is structured as fragmentary vignettes. Razia’s growing pains with her cultural heritage, Muslim faith, parental pressures, queer sexuality, and more lead to self-discoveries that help her reshape complex family and friendship ties. These pages are filled with plenty of 1980s Pakistani and American markers – music, movies, books, clothing – to evoke a singular worldview of the Pakistani immigrant community of that time and place.

✨ Review ✨ Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion, written and narrated by Bushra Rehman

This book will BREAK you. Please check out content warnings, especially around issues of sexual assault (vague) and immigration/assimilation issues.

This book follows Razia from childhood to teenage years as she's growing up in a Pakistani-American community in Queens. It's a coming-of-age story mixed with first-generation American family conflicts and struggles to find your place in a community where you're torn between loyalties between education and religion, family and friends, America and traditional ways.

The book reads more like a memoir in style, especially in the early chapters where we just see glimpses of Razia's life, helping us to understand her world, but less of a coherent narrative that moves from point A to B to C, and so on (instead it jumps from point A to D to F to H, building the world and her relationships more than a coherent narrative).

Razia's friendships and loves (books, music, etc.) evolve greatly throughout this book, not least because of familial and cultural influences. I thought it was perhaps most poignant in its exploration of queerness and identity within a Pakistani-American community. The stakes of Razia's burgeoning relationship with her friend Angela are very high, and the tensions of this relationship stretch throughout the back sections of the book.

Overall, this was beautiful and crushing and left me with so many questions. Rehman's writing is intense and incredible. Please give this a read!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (4.75)
Genre: literary fiction, immigrant communities, coming-of-age, f/f romance
Location: Queens, NYC
Reminds me of: A Woman is No Man, by Etaf Rum
Pub Date: December 6, 2022

Read this if you like:
⭕️ coming-of-age stories in immigrant communities
⭕️ discovering of LGBTQ + American hybrid identities
⭕️ stories of family and friendship
⭕️ sad stories

Thanks to Flatiron Books and Macmillan Audio and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Raiza's story is unique but also universal enough for a wide span of readers to read and appreciate.

In "Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion," Razia Mirza is a Pakistani teen growing up in Corona, Queens in the 1980's. As her world begins to expand she tries to reconcile the vision she has for her life with the traditions of her culture.

This book starts out slow with what I felt were disconnected vignettes of Razia's life. The reader gets glimpses into her family traditions, friendships, and cultural identity. As Razia grows, entering puberty and becoming a teenager the story and plot begin to blend together a bit more. That being said, I would say most of the action in the plot happens in the last 75% of the book.

In the last quarter of the book Razia's ideas for her life and her confidence in who she is begin to grow. She struggles internally because there is comfort within her culture and community but it clashes with her self identity. I would have liked to see this be the bulk of the story, and maybe even gotten a bit of an epilogue.

Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for this advance copy!

MUST read! One of the best books I have read this year! Every chapter read like a short story and just flowed so well. The story was beautifully told. I couldn't put this novel down.

Razia is coming of age in a tight-knit Pakistani American community in Corona, Queens. As friendships are made and broken, Razia rebels like any teenager: wearing short skirts, listening to music that shocks her parents, and cutting school. But when she’s accepted at a prestigious Manhattan and finds herself falling for a classmate, the colliding worlds of her new school and neighborhood community force Razia to choose between her true self and who her family wants her to be.

This is one of those books that's beautiful and moving and full of meaning, but... not a lot happens? It's very character driven, and Razia is intricately drawn, with each chapter adding an important new layer. I do kind of feel like the story ended where it should have begun, with Razia's childhood told through flashbacks. A lovely read if you love a coming-of-age character study, though!

The writing in this novel was really delightful to read. Razia's coming of age journey gave me nostalgia for the 80s, of which I lived very little myself. I loved the depiction of the Pakistani neighborhood where Razia lives in Queens. The function of the neighborhood as an extended family and its impact on the coming of age of Razia was wonderfully depicted.
While much of Razia's story is "universal" in a way, making this story so relatable to any reader, the uniqueness of her culture and identity make this such a singular novel among many coming-of-age stories. I highly recommend reading this one.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I wanted to be in love with this book. The premise sounds interesting and the book was, but the pace was so slow because of minutiae.

I loved how this book focused solely on a Muslim community, and though I loved the detail about familial relationships, community norms, food, faith practices, and the interweaving of all, it felt like the minutiae was the main character instead of the characters. At best I would describe this as beautiful vignettes, but the author didn’t do a lot to connect them to an overarching picture. At worst, it’s reading about someone’s days. And I didn’t feel connected to make me want to slog through the details by the half point because there hadn’t been payoff of major story plot points.

Thanks to Flatiron and Netgalley for the opportunity to review the ARC.

This was a pretty good book. The characters were awesome to get to know. I did have some problems with relating to the different lifestyle. Still a great book. Will definitely be telling my friends about this one

“This was not how my life was supposed to be. There was something else there, right behind the curtain. I didn’t know what it was, but if I could just put my hand through, I could almost touch it.”

ROSES, IN THE MOUTH OF A LION is a beautiful, striking novel about Razia, a queer Pakistani-American girl coming of age in Corona, a neighborhood in Queens, in the 1980s. Through Razia’s eyes, Rehman immerses us in one example of a Pakistani immigrant community and the commonality and diversity within it, and one girl’s experience of working out her own identity and relationship to her faith and culture in that close-knit context. It's a very tender and nuanced portrayal, written with the kind of great love and respect that doesn't shy away from harms caused. Rehman perfectly captures girlhood, in ways both universal (intense friendships, consuming discoveries, stark vulnerabilities, painful betrayals) and particular to Razia's community and family. ROSES reads like a collection of vignettes in the beginning, each chapter holding the internal consistency and poignancy of a short story. As the novel progresses, the connections across chapters build, in imagery and emotion, colliding into a final chapter that had me in tears. This structure is a corollary to how seemingly small moments are amplified, weighted, and given meaning in a young person’s journey, the way these stepping stones crescendo into choices that feel utterly inevitable. ROSES is bursting with music and novels, rebellions and affections, and once it had drawn me in, I really loved it. Thanks to Flatiron Books and Macmillan Audio for the review copies! This novel is out in December.

Content warnings: racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia/lesbophobia, family rejection, hate crime, murder, child marriage, domestic violence, sexual assault