This book is adorable and sweet in every way imaginable, and I loved every moment of it. The chemistry between the characters is electric, and the fake dating trope is executed flawlessly, adding just the right amount of tension and humor to keep you hooked. What makes this story truly special is its heartwarming exploration of friendship, identity, and self-acceptance. Hani and Ishu's journey is both relatable and empowering, making it impossible not to root for them every step of the way. If you're looking for a feel-good read with plenty of charm, look no further than this book!

"Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating" by Adiba Jaigirdar is a heartwarming and engaging young adult romance that explores themes of identity, friendship, and self-discovery. The novel follows Hani and Ishu as they navigate the complexities of fake dating and grapple with societal expectations, offering a fresh and diverse perspective on the genre.

Enjoyed this overall but not as much as I enjoyed the authors first book.

Still well written and very cute.

After reading (and adoring) Adiba's "The Henba Wars", I went into this book with high expectations, and let me tell you, they were met and surpassed. Sweet, heart warming cute well-written story for any "fake dating trope" fans. I will recommend this book all the way, go pick it up!

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to read this as I had issues with my kindle, however I don't want to give it bad feedback as it's no fault with the book.

Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating was a charming and sweet YA novel that still managed to touch on several different slightly more serious topics.

Occasionally this balance felt slightly unsteady, it would switch from a cute moment to something much more deep and meaningful and then back again in the space of two pages, but overall the characters felt distinctive and I enjoyed reading about their story.

This is a very cute ya sappic romance.

I liked seeing the characters get to know each other and understand the other more. It’s my first sapphic romance featuring Muslim characters and I enjoyed the representation. Most books with Muslim characters I haven’t liked the Muslim representation but the author handles it well.

The romance was also very cute from sort of enemies to friends to lovers. One of my favourite tropes. I would definitely recommend this book to oetherss to read .

Oh I just LOVED this! I adore Adiba Jaigirdar's books, she's definitely an auto-buy author and I regret not being able to read this sooner. Adiba tackles such important topics whilst delivering a beautiful romance.

Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating was my favourite read of the month in June. It filled me with so many emotions and took me on an exceptional journey. I truly loved learning more about both Hani and Ishu and witnessing as they both grew individually and together. Adiba Jaigirdar has created a fantastic and heart-warming story with this book and one that I am incredibly glad that I got a chance to read. We need more books like this to be written and I cannot wait to see what else Adiba Jaigirdar will bring into the world. I will absolutely be recommending this book to everyone I can.

This was so fun and I loved it! I liked the author's previous book The Henna Wars for its blend of lightheartedness with important themes, and this book does the same thing so well. One of the things I particularly like is how it explores the idea that a friend you've had since childhood might grow up to be someone completely different to how they were, and you find you have less and less in common, and they might not even be a very nice person now. That element was done really well.

And, of course, who doesn't love a bit of fake dating?!

Very cute!! The fake dating trope is handled well, as is the exploration of racial and queer themes.

An adorable romance and an unflinching exploration of societal and familial attitudes towards religion, sexuality, and race. The perfect mix of an emotional sapphic romance and unmissable tropes of fake dating and grumpy-sunshine unravels in the midst of racism, homophobia, and toxic friendships. One of my absolute favourites, which isn't a surprise after I gave away my heart to The Henna Wars!

Why did we not have books like this when I was a teenager?! Enjoyed this so so much, particularly the queer POC representation, and am just so thrilled that teens have access to this kind of content. Tackles some really tricky challenges around racism and biphobia, but is also super wholesome at the same time.

“ Ishu smiles, and my breath hitches at the sight of it. She smiles so rarely that each one – the genuine ones that light up her entire being – feels like a gift. Like something private she has only reserved for me.”- Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar.
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When I truly adore a book I find words to describe how much, just don’t come easy to me. This is one of the reasons I have been stuck on my review for Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating. I want you all to know that I LOVED this book. Adiba has such a talent for writing words that latch onto my heart.
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My favourite part of the novel was of course the romance between Hani and Ishu. I like that they fall for each other slowly and become genuine friends first. It was also fun that they happened to be the polar opposite of each other. The novel further highlights toxicity especially in young friendships as Hani experiences biphobia and peer pressure from girls masquerading as her “best friends”. They were awful and it really showed that sometimes the villain is someone pretending to love you!
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Not all the side characters were horrible people though, I loved Hani’s family and Ishu’s sister was wonderful. Adiba always writes the best sisterly relationships and I stan!
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While fun and sweet at times, Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating is still a powerful contemporary that doesn’t look at Ireland through Rose tinted glasses. There are multiple mentions of the Islamophobia, bullying, racism and homophobia in this country and we need more books like this. I highly recommend this book.

The thing with Adiba Jaigirdar books so far is that I’ve always been ~ s k e p t i c a l ~. I always go into these stories with cautious optimism, and really don’t expect to be completely emotionally bowled over. But it happens anyway, and it’s so freaking amazing!!! I think a big part of the reading experience being so special to me, personally, is definitely that I’m desi and queer, and there is just something about these books that makes me feel so seen, and I just can’t get enough of that. What I’m saying is, Hani and Ishu definitely followed in the vein of Henna Wars when it comes to making me feel all kinds of feelings and I love it so much for that!

As the title suggests, this book has fake dating in it. And it’s SO fun!! Hani and Ishu are the only two desi girls at their school, and when Hani’s friends don’t believe her when she comes out as bi, she tells them she’s already dating a girl. And then she tells them it’s Ishu, and it kind of goes from there. Ishu is not exactly popular, but she wants to be head girl, and Hani is everyone’s sweetheart so they make a deal. They make rules. The Guide to Fake Dating, if you will. And then it all goes to shit, as per usual.

The first thing about this book is that it is incredibly cute. Like so fucking CUTE! Hani is just adorable, Ishu is like. She’s like. I wanna both hug her and slap her around a little. They are so freaking cute together I just wanted to SQUISH them!! Hani’s the extroverted, open-hearted one who is insecure in her skin. Ishu is the introverted, self-secure one who just doesn’t think she’ll fit with anyone and doesn’t let herself get attached. It’s a little bit of a cliche trope, these character traits coming together in a romance, BUT, the execution was so fucking good, I was soooo invested!!!

And, the thing is, as cute as it all is, the book also managed to touch on some really heavy topics and it doesn’t clash with the tone at all. This is another thing I absolutely love about Adiba’s writing - her stories always manage to deliver on that fluffy feeling that you chase in a romance, while also exploring these really complex situations that come with being an immigrant in a western country, a desi person, and a queer person. Hani’s character is an exploration of how a lot of immigrant kids try to fit themselves into moulds that chisel away at their real personalities in an attempt to fit in with everyone else around them, and end up failing anyway, because you can’t just erase your identity rooted in religion and culture and race, no matter how hard you wish you could smooth it into an acceptable shade. Ishu’s conflict is more focused on her relationship with her family, where her parents are incredibly strict, and they do everything they can to give her and her sister a good life, but they think that they know what’s best for them both and expect certain things from them. And an environment like that can be extremely stifling for someone’s individuality. You keep doing things for your parents, and running yourself thin, and you don’t even know who you are at the end of it. And that’s fucked up and insane, and I couldn’t tell you what the solution to this situation exactly is. BUT, there’s a way to tell these stories that reflects the real complexity of this situation instead of vilifying one party completely. Nothing about a human relationship is black and white, least of all a familial one. And a lot of times, novels - especially, YA novels - don’t really explore this. Or do it in a very simplistic way. With Adiba’s novels, I always get the gut-wrenching reality of them, and it breaks my heart and fills me with the sensation of being known and seen and God, I love them for it!

While we see one side of this with Ishu’s parents, there’s Hani’s family who love her and accept her completely, and that doesn’t mean they’re always on an even footing, but you get to see that desi families aren’t all of A Kind, and it was just really nice to see that. I can’t speak on it, but since the author is also Muslim, I feel like the way Hani’s relationship with her faith is portrayed in this book is also really great! But, again, not an authority on that subject here. I liked it, is all I’ll say. Oh, also also also Ishu and her sister? I will cry. I will do anything for them!!!!

Overall, this book was an amazing experience for me. The thing is, Adiba’s writing is...simplistic. That’s part of where my cautious optimism comes from, because I don’t usually prefer writing styles like that. But two chapters in, I will be experiencing the existential terror that comes with being perceived, and really forget about everything else and keep reading like an insane bitch and really, that’s pretty much all I can ask from a book, you know? If you’re desi, I’d say PLEASE give this book and author a shot. If you’re not, well, you will not relate to my girls over here. But you should read it to understand them, anyway! And thus I conclude this overly long, extremely late review.

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Also, I read this book back in May and my dumbass is getting to review it only now, so kindly forgive my stumbling words thank you and good night.

Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating is the kind of book I wish I had in my teens. So much representation that was absent in the past is so exciting to see as so available now, and so much more still that one day we hopefully won’t even have these conversations. I loved the Muslim and Bengali representation, I love learning about different cultures and food, religions, a whole world of learning in books when we get so much more representation offered to everyone. Ok rant over, the story itself is entirely fabulous. It deals with so many issues such as biphobia , cultural pressure , parental expectations and family relationships. It's a beautiful book and I loved the lack of stereotypes, for example both girls are Bengali and share parts of the same culture. Hani is a Muslim who is out as bisexual to her parents, while Ishu doesn’t believe in God and struggles in sharing it with her parents. It’s just so wonderful to see bisexuality represented like this. Overall, it’s simply a beautiful story , one everyone should read.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

People tend to assume that Hani and Ishu will have a lot in common because they are the only two South Asian girls in their year, but in fact they’re very different – Hani is a people pleaser, Ishu quite the opposite.

They both have other things going on in their lives, so even though it’s a rom-com sexuality isn’t the only issue of the novel. Ishu’s perfect older sister has thrown the family into upheaval by taking a year out from her prestigious medical degree in order to get married, meaning that family expectations now fall more heavily on Ishu. Meanwhile, Hani’s dad is running for the county council (he would be the first Muslim and the first South Asian to be a councillor anywhere in Ireland if elected) and she is struggling a bit with her white friends who don’t really ‘get’ lots of things about her faith and cultural heritage. They also keep trying to set her up with boys who she isn’t interested in.

One thing I really liked about it was how there was a mix of things that might be considered ‘typically’ South Asian, such as wanting your children to be academically successful, particularly in a field like medicine, and also some things that run counter to stereotypes. For example, Hani has already come out to her parents and it is mentioned quite casually in passing, not as a huge deal; a few pages later it specifies that they were very accepting and hugged her and told her they loved her and were proud of her. Having multiple South Asian characters helps get this balance right, rather than just one on whom the entire burden of representation falls.

Despite the fact that they don’t initially really like one another, they hatch an elaborate plan of forming a fake relationship in order to solve other problems going on in their lives. In the best tradition of rom-coms, there are many miscommunications and tensions along the way before they each realise that the other is also interested. A very sweet love story between two Irish-Bengali girls that will have you rooting for Hani and Ishu all the way through!

This was such a beautifully written sapphic romance with a really cute relationship and great story. I really enjoyed this book and definitely want to read more from this author!

Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating is Adiba Jaigirdar’s second novel. I absolutely adored her debut – The Henna Wars – so much, that I couldn’t wait to read Hani and Ishu. And it doesn’t disappoint.

Hani and Ishu has so many similar elements to The Henna Wars: complicated sister relationships, being openly queer at school, coming out to your family, the reaction of your family and the response in different cultures, lots of Bengali culture and details of food, clothes, traditions dotted throughout. But it’s still a great and very different book from The Henna Wars.

Both Hani and Ishu are point of view characters and both have their own distinct voice throughout their own chapters. One thing I loved was how different many aspects of their lives, and I feel like Adiba Jaigirdar is conscious to make this evident throughout her books. She shouldn’t have to, because if two white girls in a book were very similar, no one would bat an eyelid. But if two brown, Desi girls are very similar, I imagine it would have had a lot of comments about or assumptions about how they way that they were applied to everyone of that culture. Obviously it doesn’t.

However, as someone who doesn’t know a lot about Bengali traditions, it was wonderful to learn about through the eyes of these characters. Hani’s father is interested in politics, and she joins him at the mosque, whereas Ishu’s family is not religious. Ishu is not out to her family, and they come across as a bit more traditional than Hani’s parents who she is openly out to and talks to about her relationship with Ishu.

Fake Dating
I’m not someone who goes out of their way to read a book that includes a certain trope, such as fake dating, and I can’t say I’ve read a lot of them (or at least that I can remember.) But this was such a fun concept for this book, and I love the way it was pulled off. Hani and Ishu’s arrangement happened naturally, and it very organically grew into allyship, then friendship with the possibility of something more. Hani faces a lot of biphobia and bi-erasure from her friends. But this book constantly puts out strong messages that even if you haven’t dated someone of that sex, you can know that you’re attracted to them. I loved how Hani never doubted herself, and she stood up for herself to her friends.

Overall
Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating is a gorgeously fun romance which tackles parental pressures, biphobia, Islamophobia, and so many more relevant topics. Hani and Ishu are both likable, relateable characters. The world around them that Adiba Jaigirdar has created is rich, full of culture and traditions, wants and needs and the complexities of teenage life. This has definitely cemented Adiba Jaigirdar as an auto-buy author of mine, and I will be keeping my eyes open for her future works.

If you haven’t also read The Henna Wars, I seriously recommend you pick that up too.

4 out of 5 stars!

In Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating, Hani comes out as bi to her friends, who react in a less than supportive way. She wants to prove to her biphobic friends that she really is bi, decides that what she needs is a fake girlfriend. Enter Ishu, who wants to be head girl to impress her parents, but needs to become popular in school to get the class vote. Fake dating Hani could be her ticket to popularity and the head girl position.

Ishu and Hani are super different. I absolutely adore the grump and ray of sunshine pairing, and I loved all of Ishu and Hani's interactions, especially their banter. Ishu is focused on studying. She has a complicated relationship with her sister and parents that have very high expectations, and she doesn't see the point in being friendly to people she knows don't like her. Hani is the opposite. She is popular, because she works hard to be friendly with everyone. She tries so hard to fit in, but her white friends don't understand her culture. Hani and Ishu sound like they wouldn't get on, but perhaps they are each what each other needs. Both characters are Bengali and Irish, although they have different Bengali backgrounds.

The book deals with parental expectations, peer pressure, cultural pressure, biphobia, family relationships and learning how to be yourself and follow your own dreams. It's a beautiful book, with engaging characters and a story that had me hooked. I particularly liked how Hani has supportive parents, because I'm so used to reading YA where everyone has major issues with their parents. I also loved Hani's relationship with religion, as a queer character who takes comfort in religion rather than being hurt by it.

The fake dating trope! I love this so much. I love that they have a document for the rules of fake dating. I love the slowburn as their relationship begins to develop and change. I love the banter between two very different personalities. I just love all of it! And the drama was so good. I binged the second half of the book because I desperately needed to know how it ended, and I wasn't disappointed.

I loved this as an adult, and I just know it's the kind of book I wish I'd been able to read as a teen. That must go double for any Bengali or other teens of colour, and I hope everyone who needs a book like this gets to read it.