Jackie Khalilieh

Lennon has always tried to live up to her Palestinian Canadian father''s exacting standards, even if her older sister hasn''t, but when a crush on an older white boy develops into something more, she must find the strength to balance her own desires against her father’s expectations. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter meets The Sun Is Also a Star in this new YA novel.Lennon is excited and apprehensive about starting high school, where her older sister is going to be a senior. Then her sister drops a bombshell: she is pregnant. Her Palestinian Canadian parents are devastated, and Lennon finds herself under even more pressure to be a "good girl” – a role autistic Lennon has always played well. But after a chance encounter with John, a white boy in the grade above, Lennon finds herself nursing a crush on someone her parents would definitely not approve of—which only seems to intrigue her more.As Lennon and John are drawn together and pulled apart throughout her four years of high school, Lennon wrestles with feelings of shame and yearning, obedience and rebellion through the lens of her autism, trying to both please her parents and herself. When a relationship with a different boy challenges her notions of family and happiness, her way forward becomes clear, even if it might mean losing everything and everyone she loves.

Seventeen-year-old Jamie Taher-Foster has big plans for senior year. She''s made a list of things and places in Toronto she and her boyfriend of three years, Ben Cameron, need to check off before graduating. And the biggest plan of all: a very special night for the two of them at the upcoming Winter Formal. But then Ben arrives back home after a summer away with an unthinkable announcement: he wants to break up. And when Jamie discovers him with Olivia Chen the next day, she is determined to get him back. Even if that means fake dating the younger, curly-haired, TikTok dancer Axel Dahini, whose bicycle she accidentally ran over. Though she and Axel have nothing in common aside from their shared Arab heritage - she''s a messy, type A with anxiety; he''s carefree but meticulous - their forced time together brings them to better understand one another. And for Jamie, it just might mean learning that not all experiences or people need to be crossed off a list.