Zara deals with microaggressions all the time, but football start Tyler takes the racism and xenophobia to a new level. In fact, life would be pretty great if it weren’t for Tyler. She’s almost done with her applications to all the Ivy League colleges, and her dad’s green card application is just a few months from being accepted. She has two best friends who get her, an awesome social justice club where she gets to make a real difference in her community, the absolute coolest teacher and mentor (who’s queer like her!), and loving parents who accept and support her for who she is.

Zara may be the only Muslim at her Corpus Christi high school, but for the most part, her life is good. For more information, see my “About” page. If you make a purchase by clicking through the links in this post, I will receive a commission. Now she must pay the ultimate price and choose between fighting to stay in the only place she's ever called home or losing the life she loves and everyone in it.įrom the author of the 'heart-wrenching yet hopeful' (Samira Ahmed) novel, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali, comes a timely, intimate look at what it means to be an immigrant in America today, and the endurance of hope and faith in the face of hate.I am an affiliate of and Libro.fm, online retailers that support independent booksellers. As an act of revenge against her for speaking out, Tyler and his friends vandalize Zara's house with racist graffiti, leading to a violent crime that puts Zara's entire future at risk.

While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low, trying not to stir up any trouble and jeopardize their family's dependent visa status while they await their green card approval, which has been in process for almost nine years.īut one day her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, takes things too far, leaving a threatening note in her locker, and gets suspended. Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Zara Hossain, has been leading a fairly typical life in Corpus Christi, Texas, since her family moved there for her father to work as a pediatrician. But it only takes one moment for that dream to come crashing down around them. Zara's family has waited years for their visa process to be finalized so that they can officially become US citizens.

Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan