Hana Khan Carries On

Although not technically classified as a Young Adult book, really these designations are for marketing purposes and many books considered Adult titles appeal to Teens and Young Adults and vice versa, Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin is a book that will appeal to Teens, young adults and adults alike. It’s at times an easy breezy read and at times hard hitting making it a story you will want to inhabit for as long as you can.

Many may say its the perfect “summer read” but let’s be honest, books are for every season however some you may want to enjoy on vacation more than others. Hana Khan Carries On has a wonderful romance embedded into a story about family, and politics. Hana wants to work in radio, creating her own content that reflects the people she is closest with, her family. Facing barriers and micro aggressions on the way to achieving her dream is just the cost of being brown in a white industry, but is it? Meanwhile the family business is suffering and on the brink of closure when a wealthy corporate family swoops in to try and change the close knit community by bulldozing the area for condos and profits. Hana also has a secret alter ego, a podcast pseudonym and she is getting really close to one of her most loyal listeners. Things eventually come to a head as all great stories do and readers will enjoy the climax and denouement of this heartwarming story.

Hana is a character that so many readers will connect with, trying to find her own path in the world while also trying to balance that with family obligations, obligations that are never placed on her explicitly but felt. How many of us can relate to that feeling of family guilt?! We all place it on ourselves in some way or another and some are better at compartmentalizing than others. I really connected with 

Hana in this respect. There are some incredible moments in the story and none more than the scenes with Rashid, he is so wise yet so young as an eighteen year old arriving in Canada for the first time. So many cringe moments and also moments of enlightenment come through him. 

Although it’s a fairly breezy story Uzma Jalaludin also comments on the rise of Islamophobia in this country and the blatant and overt racism BIPOC still face daily and how that plays out between immigrant parents and their first generation offspring. As a person who has lived their whole life in Canada as the daughter of Canadians stretching back to colonization it’s not something that had ever crossed my mind. It was thought-provoking and informative to understand a little more about the experiences of Canadians who don’t look exactly like me.

I loved every word of this story. It was so hard to put down and since I did read it on vacation, I read by the pool, in the hot tub and even at the kitchen table, I just couldn’t get Hana out of my head.