Much Ado About Nada

Starred review from March 20, 2023
Jalaluddin’s delightful latest (after Hana Khan Carries On) puts a rom-com spin on Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Nada Syed works hard to launch the “Ask Apa” app, designed to offer sisterly advice to Toronto’s Muslim community, but a dishonest business partner undermines her efforts, forcing her to return to an engineering job she hates. As she approaches her 30th birthday, Nada is grappling both with this professional disappointment and with mounting parental pressure to find a spouse. To lift her spirits, Nada’s best friend, Haleema, takes her to Deen&Dunya, an annual Muslim convention (“like Comic-Con, except with hijabs”), for the weekend. There, Nada will finally meet Haleema’s fiancé, Zayn, and grudgingly participate in a speed-dating event. Upon arriving, however, Nada’s shocked to learn that Zayn’s brother is Baz Haq, whom she’s known since grade school and with whom she had an intense on-and-off relationship in college. As Nada navigates the convention, she and Baz try to conceal their romantic history from their loved ones while grappling with their unresolved emotions and simmering sexual tension. Jalaluddin makes their rekindling romance positively swoonworthy, and interfering family members and rich cultural detail add to this romance’s power. Austenite or not, readers will be swept away. Agent: Ann Collette, Rees Literary.

May 1, 2023

In this complex yet comedic romance inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion, Nada Syed is a young Muslim woman who wants to work on her career but is under constant pressure by friends and family to get married. Nada's best friend Haleema organizes a girls-weekend trip to attend a conference where she is planning to introduce Nada to her fianc�'s brother Baz, but unbeknownst to everyone, there is a long and complicated past between the two. Meanwhile, Nada also comes face to face with a double-crossing mother-son duo who, years earlier, stole her start-up idea to build their own successful app that was suspiciously similar to hers. The novel is interspersed with chapters that delve into Nada's past, slowly revealing the depth of her relationship with Baz. VERDICT Sure to be a hit among readers who relish a complicated "will they/won't they" romantic tale, particularly those who enjoyed Jalaluddin's previous works such as Hana Khan Carries On. Additionally, readers looking for an authentic contemporary Muslim voice will also enjoy this novel filled with cultural references and featuring practicing Muslim characters.--Shazia Naderi

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2023
Nada Syed doesn't want to meet her best friend Haleema's fianc�. She doesn't have anything against Zayn Haq, but she is dreading running into his brother, Baz. But Deen&Dunya is the biggest Muslim convention in Toronto, and it's run by the Haqs, so Baz is impossible to avoid. When they do meet, he is cold to her; it's what she expected, but she's heartbroken, nonetheless. In between chapters detailing how Nada is stuck living with her parents as she approaches 30, the novel reveals Nada's past with Baz: first as his Sunday school bully, then as a tentative friend, then as something much more. Meanwhile, Nada thinks it might be time to get some recompense from Haneef, an old family friend, for stealing Nada's business idea, a Muslim-focused search engine. Jalaluddin (Hana Khan Carries On, 2021) updates Jane Austen's Persuasion for modern Muslim life in the fictional Golden Crescent neighborhood in Toronto, where Muslims from all over the world worry about their children getting married and becoming too modern. It's a lively, romantic story with rich side characters and a convincingly heartbreaking backstory for Nada and Baz. Readers of Sonali Dev's Austen updates, including Recipe for Persuasion (2020), will adore this gem.

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