I Miss You, I Hate This by Sara Saedi

Abstract

Reviewed by: I Miss You, I Hate This by Sara Saedi Amanda Toledo Saedi, Sara I Miss You, I Hate This. Poppy, 2022 [352p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780316629829 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780316629867 $9.99 Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 9-12 Best friends Parisa and Gabriela don’t make sense on paper: Parisa is high anxiety/high GPA, and her immigrant Iranian parents are engineers that provide a luxurious life complete with an infinity pool and Peloton. Meanwhile Gabriela is a cool, calm, conventionally gorgeous Mexican American daughter of lesbian mothers who scrape to get by financially even with Gabriela’s part-time job. The friendship works despite their differences, but when Ademavirus, a novel virus, shuts down the country for their senior year of high school, the cracks in their friendship spiderweb and deepen. Fracturing friendships are nothing new in YA, and the girls themselves aren’t nuanced enough to elevate familiar tropes. Gabriela is an artist but lacks any real creative depth while Parisa is an academic with dreams of getting into Harvard [End Page 99] but has little else to her character. Saedi fumbles with her portrayal of a pandemic, inventing a new virus that closely resembles COVID-19 except this virus “impacts young people more than old people.” Sensemaking of life in a pandemic may be too far a reach, but the thoughtful delicacy and humor in the portrayal of Parisa’s anxiety disorder, as well as the anguish of loneliness and power of friendship in a pandemic, are captured effectively and may provide comfort to teens grappling with similar struggles. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois