**Persian Culture and Identity: A Love Letter to "The Star-Touched Queen"**

I recently finished reading "The Star-Touched Queen" by Roshani Chokshi, and I must say that it was a truly unforgettable experience. One of the aspects of this book that resonated with me the most was its exploration of Persian culture and identity. The author's use of Farsi terminology, such as "fargilisi," which is a mix of Farsi and English, added to the authenticity of the novel. It reminded me of my own experiences growing up in a multicultural family where we would often speak in a blend of languages.

As I read through the book, I was struck by the way Chokshi wove together Persian mythology and culture with modern-day themes of identity, mental health, and family dynamics. The protagonist, Maya, is an Indian princess who is married to the prince of a mythical kingdom inspired by ancient India and Persia. Throughout the novel, Chokshi explores the complexities of cultural heritage and how it shapes our identities.

One of the aspects that I found particularly compelling was the way the book tackled mental health, specifically depression. Darius, Maya's husband, struggles with depression, and Chokshi handles this topic with sensitivity and nuance. The author also sheds light on how Iranian people understand mental illness, or lack thereof, which added depth to the narrative.

As I read through the book, I found myself reflecting on my own experiences growing up in a Persian-American household. The way Maya's grandparents spoke to her, as well as her aunts and uncles, reminded me of my own interactions with family members who would often use a mix of Farsi and English. It was like reading about my own life.

The book is also significant because it coincided with the Persian New Year, which I celebrated with my grandmother. Reading "The Star-Touched Queen" during this time felt especially meaningful, as if the author had captured the essence of our culture in a way that resonated deeply with me.

Overall, I would highly recommend "The Star-Touched Queen" to anyone who loves fantasy, romance, or cultural explorations. Chokshi's writing is lush and evocative, and her use of Persian language and mythology adds a richness to the narrative that is hard to find in many other books. Whether you're interested in Persian culture, mental health, or just great storytelling, this book has something for everyone.

**Reading Wrap-Up**

As I finish up my reading wrap-up for the year, I'm excited to share my thoughts on all the books I've read so far. "The Star-Touched Queen" was one of my favorites, and I'm thrilled to say that it's going straight onto my list of all-time favorite reads.

Currently, I'm listening to the audiobook version of "The Gilded Wolves" by Roshani Chokshi, and I must say that I'm absolutely loving it. The author has a way with words that is both engaging and immersive, and I find myself completely absorbed in the world she's created. With only about an hour and a half left to go, I can already tell that this book is going to be a five-star read.

I've been fortunate enough to thoroughly enjoy every single book I've read so far this year, and I'm excited to continue on this trend of discovering new authors and titles that I truly love. While I may not be able to commit to monthly reading wrap-ups, I do plan to share my thoughts and updates on the books I'm reading here on the blog. Stay tuned!

**Social Media Links**

If you'd like to follow me on social media to stay up-to-date on all my latest reads and adventures, you can find me at [insert links].

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni thought that this was gonna be like easily five stars easily one of my favorite books of all time  this was almost three stars for me hello everyone so recently i have been reading a lot of books  which has been quite wonderful it's been a really long time since i've been this motivated to  read this consistently i finished two books in one day the other day and it was  fantastic i haven't done that in so long but since i've been loving these books so much i also wanted  to talk about them and share them with you all so i'm filming a reading wrap up today for the  first time in like a million years and yeah i'm really excited to talk about all these books i  have seven to share with you all i almost had eight but i'm not done with the eighth book  that i'm currently reading right now i know last year i literally only read eight books and so far  this year i've read a total of seven almost eight books um so hopefully this year's reading is like  much better than last year's because at the very least i'm in the mood to read which is a good sign  so without any further ado let's get into talking about all of the books that i've read so far this  year so starting off with the very first book i read this year which was a sky beyond the storm  by saba tahir the final book in the ember in the ashes quartet as you all know this is one of my  all-time favorite series it's one of my god tier series i love it so so much and the last book came  out last year in december not too far from when i read it i read this in january so it hasn't been  that long like i didn't wait that long to read it which was good but i did really enjoy this book  i actually have a whole reading vlog about it a lot of people still ask me if i've read it it's  because i didn't put the title of the book in the title of the video but i have a whole reading vlog  where i have like a full spoiler-filled video of all of my thoughts on this book if you want  to hear my in-depth thoughts on it i'll link it on the screen so you can go and watch it as well  as down below but i really enjoyed this i thought it was a really great conclusion to the series it  was really satisfying i got everything i wanted i wasn't too utterly devastated which makes me  happy because i really thought that i was just gonna be so miserable at the end of this series  because without giving away any spoilers i just thought terrible things were gonna happen to  everyone that i cared about and terrible things did happen but like they weren't so terrible that  i like couldn't function afterwards you know like we still got a good satisfying ending  and i'm really really happy about it it had been a while since i'd read like a good conclusion  to a series i feel like recently the uh finales i've been reading for series which i'll mention  in a minute once i talk about the next book on my list but with this one i actually felt like  it was the perfect conclusion to the story i feel like it wrapped up all the loose ends that  we needed answers to and i feel like all of the characters got to go through a very well-developed  arc and the plot was entertaining it didn't drag too much my one complaint about this one though  was that i think it was a little bit too long that was one of the only reasons i didn't like this one  as much as i liked the first couple of books my favorite in the series i think is still an  ember in the ashes the first one is definitely my favorite one and then it would probably go  torch than this one and then a reaper in the gates i think that would be my order but nonetheless i  think i gave this four stars like four and a half four stars something like that i did really really  love it and i would highly recommend this series i have for years i will continue to recommend it  until more people have read it because i love this series with my whole heart and you should  read it but yeah if you do want to see my full in-depth spoiler-filled thoughts i have a whole  reading vlog that's really long of me like feeling every emotion under the sun as i'm reading this  one so i'll be sure to link that if you want to watch it but i'm really glad that i read this and  i'm sad that the series is over but it was still a good ending all right the next book that i read  was uh the king of crows by libba bray the final book in the diviners series another one of my  favorite series this one i do have to say however i think also falls victim to being just like too  long it was too long it dragged out for too long and that i think is my biggest complaint about  this one i liked the plot i liked where the story was going it just felt like nothing happened for  a really long time and then suddenly everything happened and it was super rushed and there was  like no explanation for a lot of the stuff that happened in the plot i have to be vague because  i don't want to spoil anything about this series obviously because this is the finale of the series  but everything was just so rushed at the end in like the last few chapters it did not feel well  paced and i think that was my biggest problem with it i think i ended up giving this one three  stars let me check goodreads yeah i gave it three stars i think it's more around like 3.5 for me but  obviously goodreads doesn't let us do half stars but yeah it's about like 3.5 it wasn't my favorite  at all in the series for sure my favorite one is still i think before the devil breaks you  the one before this so the third book and then the diviners and then layer of dreams and then king of  crows that's my order i don't know why i'm giving my order for all these series but yeah definitely  a bit more of a disappointing conclusion in my opinion not bad by any means just not as  satisfying as i wanted it to be and um just not as well paced just too long i think this is a problem  with like a lot of final books like you just want to wrap everything up and you want to make sure  you've got everything covered and say every last thing that you need to say and the books just end  up being like a bit too long sometimes i also feel this way about like queen of air and darkness for  example from the dark artifaces series that book is like 900 pages or something like that like it  could have easily been like 600. this one's like not even that long it's like 540 pages which is  decently long but not super super long but for some reason it just feels like it dragged out  forever because like i said not much happened in the beginning at all i feel like i'm being  really harsh to it i did still enjoy it i still do recommend the series the other books are  incredible it just wasn't my favorite ending to a series so that's kind of how i feel about  king of crows again do you recommend the series read the diviners definitely worth your time but  i wish that i had liked this a little bit more then the next book that i read was this is how  you lose the time war and i did mention this book in a recommendation video that i filmed recently  so if you want to hear me talk about it in some more depth you can definitely go and watch that  i actually talked about this book and the book i'm going to mention next as well in that video  so you can go watch that if you want to hear some more of my thoughts on these books but this is how  you lose the time war it came out in 2019 i think it was pretty popular last year as well as you'll  notice from this list i have been sticking to my tbr for the year so well i've made my way  through uh six of the books so far out of ten so i only have four more to read that were on that list  so i'm pretty proud of myself okay i think i will genuinely read every single book that was on my  to be read list for 2021 which will be a first i've literally never done that before but this is  how you lose the time war is about these two time travelers who are on opposite sides of a time war  and they fall in love with each other and write letters back and forth to each other through time  and it is as good as it sounds it's beautiful the writing in here is beautiful the story itself is  beautiful i mentioned this in my other video as well but i think the ending of this book makes the  entire story like even better i loved the ending of this i thought the ending was fantastic it's  a sapphic romance in a fantasy sci-fi novel and i just love it it's so good i do however want to say  that i think you'll be more inclined to like this if you're a fan of like whimsical writing stories  that leave a lot to the imagination like there are no clear-cut descriptions of things it's more  flowery writing if you like genres like magical realism and things like that i think you'll have  a better time reading this those are like some of my favorite types of books books that leave a lot  to the imagination where things don't exactly make sense and you kind of have to make sense of it  in your head and i feel like that's kind of what the writing of this book is like allah like neil  gaiman ocean at the end of the lane i think i've described it like that a little bit before if you  like that type of writing i think you'll really really love this book if you're not a big fan  of that type of writing i don't know how great of a time you'll have reading this but i still  think it's worth trying because it's such a good book and i think everyone should read it because  it's so beautifully written and it's just such a beautiful story but i do want to say that because  i feel like if you go into it without knowing that it's like a little bit more imaginative you might  have a little bit of a harder time with it but if you love that type of stuff like i do i think you  will absolutely adore this book um because it's fantastic so yeah i couldn't recommend it enough  i think i gave this one four stars as well it's like four four and a half maybe not one of my  all-time favorite books but definitely one i would recommend because i think it's amazing and then  the next book i read like i mentioned is another one that was in my recommendation video recently  and that is the house in the cerulean sea i love this book i know everyone read this last year i  know everyone was in love with it last year i know it took me a while to finally get to it and to  finally read it but i did and i can't express to you how good it is it's so purely wholesome like i  don't think i've read a book that has made me this happy in such a long time it's purely just like  a happy book dark things and sad things happen in it but it is a happy story it's about love in  all of its forms not just romantic it's a found family story it's very character based which as  you know probably um is my favorite type of story i'm such a character based reader i'm not a huge  like plot person obviously i want an interesting plot to keep things moving forward but like i  love characters and i love the characters in this book so much i'm sure you all know what it's about  since everyone's talked about it at this point but if you don't it's about this world in which  people can be born as like magical creatures and there's like a stigma against the people who are  born with like these magical abilities and we follow around our main character who works as  kind of like a social worker and he's assigned to go to this orphanage to do like an investigation  on this specific orphanage because it's where they send the most like  dangerous children because one of the kids who is at this orphanage is literally the son of lucifer  and so he goes to this orphanage to meet the kids and meet the man who runs the orphanage as well  and we meet all of the kids and all of the people who work there and you fall in love with all of  them because they're all so precious and so good and i can't express how much i love every single  character in this book i would die for them they are so cute and so precious and i just  i don't even know how to talk about this book it's so happy if you haven't already read house in the  cerulean c just read it it's so good you will not be disappointed it is so engaging i finished it so  quickly because i didn't want to stop reading and it's just a heartfelt story with a lot of depth  but with a lot of light as well and it's easy to read honestly like if you're looking for something  that isn't going to be too heavy that you can one get through quickly because it is fairly short but  also something that isn't going to take a lot of emotional energy from you because it's really sad  or it's really complex or something like that this is just a light happy story that definitely has a  lot of depth but will make you care about the characters very deeply so yeah um i love this  book i'm so glad that so many people recommended it to me and told me to read it and i'm so glad  that i finally did because i don't regret it at all i only regret not having read it sooner  okay so the next book i have here i have talked about so much i have a whole reading vlog for it  many of you have probably already seen it but i did want to talk about it here briefly without  some spoilers and that is of course none other than chain of gold by cassandra clare the second  book in the last hours series it finally came out i finally read it i have a whole  hour and 15 minute spoiler-filled reading vlog of me just screaming and crying and losing my mind  if you're wondering why i have had like a lack of videos recently it is in part because reading this  and then filming that vlog and then editing that vlog which was six hours of raw footage  of literally the entire thing was literally just me talking for six hours because i never shut up  that is why i have been uploading less because honestly reading this and filming that whole  video and editing it all took the life out of me literally the life out of me i feel like i  reread the book like 40 times but chain of iron did i call a chain of gold earlier i might have  chain of iron chain of iron utterly destroyed me like i knew exactly how it was going to end and a  lot of people even commented on my reading vlog saying like how did you predict the ending like  10 minutes into this video it's because i knew i knew from the end of chain of gold exactly how  this book was gonna end because i've read too many books and like i just know i can predict  everything at this point i can predict plot points and plot devices that people are gonna use all the  time especially with cassandra clare books now because like i'm so used to reading her stories  and that's not to say that they're predictable i just know exactly how she likes to break people's  hearts so i can make pretty educated guesses and i was 100 right about how this book ended and it  did break me exactly like i predicted but it was so much fun to read this is hands down  gonna be one of my favorite books i read in 2021 i know that i am loving this series so much and  i may very well end up liking it we'll know once chain of thorns comes out the last book  i might end up liking it more than the infernal devices the only reason i think i will ever like  the infernal devices more than this like the one thing that would make me hold on to that  more than this is because of the nostalgia like i read that when i was really young and it meant  a lot to me at a young age so like that aspect of it will never go away but plot-wise character-wise  this could easily become my favorite the way i feel about james and cordelia i have not  felt about characters in a very long time like i am so invested in their lives and their well-being  and their happiness and they're like never gonna be happy and i'm just gonna be so miserable for a  whole other year until we get this last book like i obviously anticipated that before i  started reading it but like even still it was so heartbreaking you can see how much i like  tabbed in here how many scenes just like broke me apart because it was so good it was genuinely  such a good book it definitely didn't suffer from like that second book in a series like slump that  a lot of second books have i honestly think it's pretty comparable to how much i like chain of gold  i can't decide i think right now i like chain of gold more than i like this one in part because  i'm just so mad at this book right now but also i tend to like first books in series the most  usually i don't know why it's always the first or last but typically for me it's the first book in a  series it just depends i need to give it a little bit of time and maybe a reread for each of them  to decide fully but i do like it pretty much just as much as i like chain of gold  i gave this one five stars as well easily i don't remember if i mentioned what star rating i gave  to house in the cerulean c but i gave it five stars that was my first five star read of the year  this was my second five star read of the year so yeah um if you want to know all of my in-depth  thoughts on it if you've read this book or even if you haven't and you want to see me cry for like an  hour and 15 minutes you can go watch that vlog i'll leave it linked on the screen as well but  yeah i had a great time reading this i always have such a fun time reading cassandra clare books and  i can't wait like i literally just can't wait until next march when we finally get the last  book so i can actually know what's gonna happen to my favorite characters and to see how sad i'm  gonna have to be because i know that third book is gonna be worse than the first two combined and i'm  not ready for it i will never be ready for it and i always say soon and then i just don't and then  like i started reading it in one video and then i like never finished it and put it down for months  anyway we had like a rocky start with this book but i finally read it and i finally finished it  and that is none other than the invisible life of addie larue by v.e schwab this is so shiny hold on  i have some thoughts on this so everyone was like hannah you're going to love addie larue you're  going to love it i was like i'm going to love it i love every victoria schwab book i have read i have  almost an entire shelf where is it there almost an entire shelf dedicated just to her books because  i love her writing so much i love her stories i've loved everything i've ever read that she  has written and i really thought this was going to be like my favorite v schwab book of all time  and honestly i didn't love it as much as i thought i would and i'm a little bit sad  what's falling out of here my bookmark i thought that this was going to be like easily five stars  easily one of my favorite books of all time this was almost three stars for me i ended up  giving it four stars by the end and i'll explain a little bit more about that but i thought it for  a long time while i was reading this i was like i think i'm just gonna give this three like it's  okay it's good but i like don't feel a lot and i really thought that i would so to go into it a bit  without spoilers obviously the beginning of the book i loved i loved when we were getting like the  exposition of the beginning describing addie's life describing who she was uh describing her  family and how she came to make this deal with the devil and how all of that came about like i liked  the setup at the beginning i thought it was fascinating i was loving it at the beginning i  was like yeah this is going to be a five-star book easily then it slowed down a little bit and like  kind of nothing happened for a little while it was just like addie going around kind of getting used  to this life of being an immortal essentially but like not much was happening which like i mentioned  earlier i love character-based books so i don't really care too much if the plot is kind of slow  but i didn't really like addie very much her personality was kind of almost non-existent  a lot of the time and when we did see some of her personality i didn't really find her very  interesting i just wasn't engaged i didn't really understand her motivations i guess besides like  wanting to get out of this deal obviously but i mean like as a person like as an individual i  i just didn't really feel a lot for her and i feel like i expected to feel a lot more for her  and then we got to henry and then the book picked up again and i was like yes i'm liking this again  this is good i think i will really like this and then it once again slowed down a little bit and  again i thought i'd be super invested in their relationship and i wasn't at all honestly i did  really like henry i thought that he was probably he's actually hands down my favorite character  in the entire book but i was not super invested in their relationship and i just i don't know i  thought i would like it a little bit more but i just didn't care all that much so like i said it  slowed down a little bit and then we get to the end and it picked up for sure and i was like okay  this is getting a little bit more engaging and then the end was like a complete roller coaster  for me because i was like okay this is we're getting to like the climactic point of this  story and it got interesting and i was like yeah this sounds good and then it slowed down again  and i was like okay never mind i don't really know how i feel about this and then right when  we got to the very end i was like this is so good it was so good the end the very end of this book  i think saved the entire book for me i loved the ending i thought the ending was incredibly well  done and i feel like what i felt at the ending was what i wanted to feel throughout the rest of the  book but i just didn't but i think it just kind of boils down to for me i did not feel a connection  with these characters i gave it four stars it's more like 3.75 which is why i round it up to four  it's not above four stars for me honestly at all and that's not because i don't think it's  good it's just that i wanted to feel more from it i think and i wanted to be able to connect to  the characters and i just couldn't i honestly couldn't and i know it sounds like i'm like  giving it like a really bad rating or something obviously four stars is not a bad rating i did  enjoy it i had a good time reading this i'm really glad that i read it and i would recommend it but  i also just found myself constantly sitting there being like i don't care and i know that sounds bad  but like i just didn't feel for addie i really didn't feel for addie and i want to feel for  our main character if i'm reading a book and that typically is what like makes me like or dislike a  book most if i don't like the main character i'm not gonna have a good time and i really didn't  care about addie almost at all i liked her at the very end like i said i really liked her at  the very end but throughout the other like 400 pages or however long this book is like i just  didn't feel for her it's like over 400 pages and i felt for her for only about like maybe  30 of them and i don't want this to come across as like i have to like relate to the main character  in order to like the main character because i like plenty of main characters who are villains or like  morally gray or just not great people necessarily addie was just for and immortal so apathetic and  not in the fun way you know like i'm thinking about apathetic like lestat from interview with  a vampire like that was fun you know that's like a fun type of like i don't care about anyone or  anything like i'm just gonna do whatever i want if she were more like that i think i would have had  more of a fun time with it but like this girl is like 300 years old and barely cares about anything  i couldn't understand that i couldn't understand that and it wasn't fun to read about 300 years of  history and she barely ventured outside of europe and the us which i don't comprehend honestly and i  know cindy from with cindy made like a whole video about this i loved her video on this book about  like how white this story is and i think that also definitely influenced how i was feeling about this  as well because i just could not grasp how you could not care more about other parts of the  world when you're literally an immortal you know like i would go everywhere even if i were like the  apathetic like i don't care about anything in the world type of immortal i would still go everywhere  i wouldn't just like stick to one place to me it makes her feel like an underdeveloped character  like something was just missing and again this is not to say like oh she has to do things the way i  would do things because no obviously i don't read about characters just because i want them to be  like me that would be insufferable um but to me it just felt like she was underdeveloped like i felt  like she had no drive until she met henry and then it was like fun to read about but like before then  prior to then you had like 300 years to like work through some of these emotions but i feel like  she kind of just like glided through 300 years of history to the point where she like forgot  herself and i know the whole thing is about like people forgetting her and maybe that is part of  the story as well like addie ends up forgetting herself as well to the point where she like  is hardly a person and so if that's the case it's poetic i get it but it also made it more  difficult for me to feel any sort of investment in her character so that's why i do really like it i  see the merit of this book obviously and i enjoyed reading it i just have some issues with addie's  character but yeah anyway those are my thoughts on the invisible life of addie larue i would  definitely recommend this book i think it's worth reading i think that it's a beautifully written  story as you know i mentioned many times i love victoria schwab's writing i'd recommend most of  her books honestly to anyone but again i'm just a little bit sad that i didn't love it as much as i  expected to love it and a lot of you also expected me to love it more i'm sorry to disappoint you  i just i i really thought i would die over this book but i didn't even shed a single tear  which makes me sad and finally the very last book that i read recently and by recently i  mean i finished this yesterday is another book that so many people have been asking me to read  for so long and i've been meaning to read this for so so long and yesterday i was just like in  this mood and i decided to pick it up and i'm so glad that i did because i loved it such an  easy five-star read for me and i'm so so glad i finally read it and that is none other than darius  the great is not okay like i said so many people have been like hannah you have to read this book  the main character is persian he goes to iran like you're gonna love it you were all correct  i did love it i loved it so much i loved this the amount that i thought i was going to love  the invisible life of addie luru if you don't know what this book is about it's about this boy  named darius who is half white half persian his dad is white and his mom is persian and one day  he and his family end up going to iran to visit his maternal grandparents because his grandfather  is dying he has a brain tumor i think and this would be like the last time they'd be able to  see him so they end up going to iran to visit family and visit him and it's darius's first time  in iran and it's about identity and culture and mental health and so many things like i  i don't know how to talk about this book without like tearing up because like  this made me feel so seen so understood it is one of those books that i read where i was like  i understand what people mean when they say like this isn't for you like and i don't mean that in  like a bad way but like i was reading this and i was like this is for persians for iranians like  for iranian americans especially for like the children of immigrants who were born here and  who have that like conflicting mixed culture where you're like i don't feel like i'm fully persian  because like i can't fully speak the language properly and i don't know everything about  the culture but i'm also not like a white kid in school because i don't fit in with their culture  either and you feel this like weird disconnect that i think only the children of immigrants  really understand and so much of this story is about that and i could relate to everything  about this honestly on such a deep personal level and when i say that like it was written  for a specific group of people i mean like if you're not iranian-american if you have never  experienced that culture if you haven't grown up with like persian culture around you in a persian  household and family you're not going to get the same thing out of this book it's still worth  reading and you should absolutely read it because i think everyone should read this it's such a  good why contemporary and this is one of those things where i read it and i was like this is why  representation matters like this is why we need books like this so that people can feel understood  feel not just seen but like respected if that makes sense like i felt respected reading this  i felt like someone was like yeah you exist you're real the things that you've experienced are real  and i've experienced them too and other people experience them all the time  and this is a narrative that exists for a lot of people and these are experiences that a lot of  us have gone through and you didn't go through them alone despite the fact that you felt like  you were alone the entire time but no you weren't because these are almost universal experiences for  us and that's what i felt i got out of this story like i feel like that's what it said to me and it  was so beautiful like all the farsi in here the puns they make like damning the tea to hell like  you'll understand what that means if you've read it or if you understand farsi but like it was so  good i was reading it and i was talking to my mom and my grandma and we were like talking about the  jokes in here and stuff and i was explaining it to them and like it was just so nice and such a good  experience it made me cry it made me think about my own experiences my own family my own identity  and how i relate to my own like ethnicity and my persianness and it was funny like the amount of  like times they talk about like taro thing in this book is so funny to me and the way that darius or  daryush since that's his like persian name the way that like he mixes english and farsi since he  doesn't completely understand farsi like he can't fully speak farsi and he doesn't fully understand  it either besides like some words i'm fairly fluent in farsi like i don't know some words  and i've lost a lot of it since i haven't spoken it super consistently since i was a little kid  so i also have that like difficult time navigating the language sometimes if i'm speaking with  someone who doesn't speak any english at all and so sometimes he would like mix farsi and english  and it's exactly the way that me and my family do it like we call it fargilisi which is like  farsi mixed with english because in farsi english is ingalysis so like my sister my mom and i call  it farguilisi and sometimes we'll speak in like a mix of farsi in english that's what this reminded  me of like the way that he and his family would talk occasionally and it was just little things  like that throughout the entire book that like made me so happy and made me feel so understood  and i just oh my god i can't recommend this enough it is such a good book and on another note apart  from the like persian ethnicity and like identity aspect of this the thing that i think that this  book does so beautifully is the way that it talks about mental health darius has uh depression and  he talks about his depression in this and it talks a lot about depression in like iranian culture  and the way that like iranian people understand mental illness or don't understand mental illness  and the way his family talks to him about it like so many of the things in here where like my own  experiences like reflected back to me like the way his grandparents would speak to him or his  aunts or uncles would speak to him i was like it's literally like that's my daddy talking  to me like reading this especially like right now when it's like persian new year just happened and  my grandmother's visiting me right now as well and i haven't seen her in like two years and um i feel  like i've just been super like immersed in persian culture and stuff and it was just like the perfect  time for me to read this i think so yeah i just like deeply deeply loved it and i truly cannot  recommend it enough i think everyone should read it i absolutely think it is worth your time one  of the best why a contemporaries i've ever read and yeah you will not be disappointed at all it's  such a good book but there you all have it that is it for my reading wrap up of all of the books  that i've read so far this year like i mentioned earlier i have thoroughly enjoyed everything  i've read so far this year the other book that i'm currently reading right now as well i am  absolutely loving i'm listening to the audiobook and i have about like an hour and a half left  and i already think it's gonna be a five-star book so yeah i'm like i said really enjoying everything  i'm reading and i hope to continue on this trend of reading more books that i really really love  throughout the year and i'll be sure to do more reading wrap ups once i read like a decent number  of books i'll do them i'm not necessarily going to do them monthly because i don't know how much i'll  read every month especially the next few months i'm pretty busy so i don't think i'll be able to  read too much but i will try to do them once i've acquired a good number of books i've read and then  just update you every once in a while on what i've been reading since i'm actually reading now  what a shock but thank you all so much for watching this video if you've read any of the  books that i mentioned in this video please let me know any of your thoughts in the comments down  below i'd love to discuss any of the books with you in more detail because like i said i really  like them so i definitely want to talk about them and i want to hear your thoughts as well  if you'd like to follow me on any of my social media to keep up with whatever else i'm reading  and everything else i'm doing all my links are in the description box as always but thank you  all so much for watching this video i hope you enjoyed and i will see you in my next videobyeyou\n"