The Exes is a Gossip Girl meets Crazy Rich Asians meets Bollywood teen/YA romance. I have to preface this review by saying that my views are those of an outsider perspective, (not being Muslim or having much knowledge of Islam and its values).

Firstly, the positives… I personally think The Exes is a progressive piece of Muslim representation for teens and young adults. Not only is the role of religion, culture, and community explored but also the rules and principles that govern modern dating for Muslims. Iqbal includes particular storylines that fall outside of halal dating and highlights the deep-rooted prejudice that surrounds such “scandalous” behaviour — directed toward women in particular— which is eye opening.

The characters’ exploration of identity — both cultural and religious — was the most absorbing component of the book. Zara and Karim’s differing relationship to their South Asian background and culture added depth and complexity to their relationship. Particularly, I found the themes of agency and desire and the different connotations of each for the two characters to be compelling.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book fell flat for me. The dialogue felt unnatural, the dual narratives were underdeveloped and not distinct enough to feel authentic. “The Exes” felt like basic caricatures of influencers. There were plenty of hard-hitting topics that were often dealt with tactfully but also others where more care and deliberation should have been afforded.

I would be honest, it was a little hard to get into this book until about half way, but after that I was speeding through it. I really liked the gossip girl vibes.

This was sweet and I loved the opposites attract! It being set in London was lovely since I could recognise all the places they went, it really helped me get into the story! The MCs were so sweet and I loved her best friend- she was so supportive and bubbly and just,, wonderful! Everyone needs a friend like Saliha!

Cultural Islam always puts me off books and this one was no different- particularly seeing the holy book being displayed in a glass case as a decorative piece- if i was to pretend none of these characters were Muslim I think I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more but I couldn’t because words or phrases kept coming up. It’s personal preference but i tried to not let it affect my rating too much because the writing was wonderful and they were super sweet !

1 star
TW: abortion in minors, cyberbullying that leads to injury, patriarchy, gender inequality, domestic violence, Islamophobia, classism, racism, and mental health
I received a digital copy from NetGalley and the publisher. All thoughts are my own

Looking at such a heavy content warning list makes me really uncomfortable that this is a YA romance that has been traditionally published. Whilst I commend the author for listing almost everything above in detail at the start of the book, this warning list is not easily accessible before purchasing/receiving a copy of The Exes, and I'll be honest, if this list existed before I applied for the e-ARC I received, I wouldn't have picked this book up. I'm not sure what the author was attempting to achieve with all these heavy topics in a YA romance setting, and this is very much so another catfish moment where the synopsis is selling something very different from what I read. I've never felt so uncomfortable reading a book about young people until this one. I don't usually give 1 star reviews, and usually dnf before that point. But I feel this story is very toxic, and I don't feel comfortable recommending it to anyone.

*SPOILER* I cannot weigh in on the Muslim representation or Islamic religion in this without looking ignorant. However, I found the whole casual start of the book about a 17 year old having an abortion surprising, especially when the main male character was involved in this side character's pregnancy and this story is about him starting a relationship after this event. The handling of such a sensitive topic and the subsequent performance of this side character and her downfall was overwhelming and left a sour taste in my mouth.

Again, Zara's entire home and her dithering between two males was off-putting. She is described to be super intelligent and perfect, but I found many of her reactions to speak otherwise and her personality was forever morphing to fit the scene. I felt a lot of the situations weren't framed in a way to showcase any growth of the characters or storyline, and it jumped from one dramatic moment to the next, utilising shock factor in every moment. The resolutions were fast and shallow at best, especially with Zara's patriarchal-led family life and the toxicity around her parent's responses to Zara. I try to read YA romances with mindfulness around teenage tone and sometimes juvenile or dramatic reactions to situations, but I struggled with a very mature and adult type of world with the Exes and then swapping to very young acting teenagers with Zara's storyline, and it constantly felt like whiplash. Nothing was satisfying in the end, apart from that I could finally put the book down. I kept reading to see if I could find something redeemable about this story, but I just couldn't grasp the type of morals or story the author was attempting to share here.

When I was young, my mum took me to the pantomime to watch CInderella. My mum tells me that all the other children came out happy but I came out crying. When she asked me why, I told her it was because Button's didn't have anyone to marry. This book brought that memory back to me. At the start of they story, Zara is a studious, young muslim girl who is doing her best to conform to her parents' wishes despite witnessing her sister's unhappy marriage and the fact her parents have rejected her brother for marrying a woman from another race. However, over the course of the story, Zara starts to develop feelings for two guys, the famous Karim, a youtube influencer, and Imran, the bad boy next door. Both boys have pros and cons and both like Zara. But she can only choose one. Hence my memory of Cinderella.

I really enjoyed this book and it feels like there is more to this story, so I hope there's going to be a follow up. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys things like Gossip Girl as the mysterious Mr Ex brings that vibe through out the story.

Thank you to Penguin Random House UK Children's and Anam Iqbal for the opportunity to review The Exes in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Exes is a litle slow starting off, but about half way the romance and pacing picks up. A sweet, nice romance story with hints of gossip gal vibe and dangers sharing everything about ourselves & lives online can lead to. A perfect YA/Teen romance with wonderful cultural portrayal and positive messages for girls about their own dreams while still respecting their heritage. The characters are relatable, well-developed though unless your part of the Tiktok and influencer field of knowledge some parts might come up a little weird and bizzare, but everything happens on social media.

I did not like this. At all.

Karim is a tiktoker who lip-syncs. Yes, he's that kind of influencer. My first thought was that it's probably a joke, but no, unfortunately not. The rest of his friend group "The Exes" are also influencers but they at least have a talent, like singing or dancing. Apart from that, they have no personality at all, just like Zara, who is also a muslim like Karim and comes from a very conservative family.
Zara got into a very unnessecary love triangle with Karim and her "badboy" neighbour. I didn't like either of them. They were all annoying.
And the fact that they called Karim "iconic" just because he is a hot tiktoker felt like a joke. He didn't do anything special to be called "iconic". Also thinking of the time when Zara told Karim that not everyone's obsessed with him when I clearly remember that she and her best friend, in fact, were obsessed with him before.
It also felt like The Exes were just kids trying to dress up and not already 17 or 18 years old. I got big gossip girl and new money vibes from that.
And how Zara's troubled family got together in the end was very unrealistic. So you're telling me that after a bit of screaming and hugging, the parents were not racist and mysoginistic anymore and they were happy and loving parents again after they disowned and kicked out like all of their children!?

The ending was very disappointing because we didn't find out who Mr. Ex is. Unfortunately, his identity was the main reason why I kept reading.

I seriously can't tell you a good reason why you should read this book, sorry, but at least it was entertaining because of the drama.

1,5 ☆ stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I tried so hard to enjoy this as it seemed to be similar to Gossip Girl but diverse and set in London but omg. The characters were so annoying, unlikeable and I just couldn't care less about them. The two POVs we got were a lot of cringe (the MMC lip syncs and records social media content) and a whole lot of telling and not showing. So disappointed.

Thanks so much to Penguin Books, NetGalley and Anam Iqbal for the eARC, all opinions expressed are my own.

This was not for me. The premise sounds super unique and as a BIPOC person I thought it would be perfect. But the writing and characters were really underdeveloped and I struggled to finish it.

Just to clarify first off, I am not a Muslim but it was nice to read about the culture and the beliefs behind it. I think people should go into this remembering that it is 100% fiction and that the characters are going through their own stuff which leads them to some questionable choices at times.

There was a powerful conversation Karim and his dad and that really struck a note for me. It was really emotional to see how both characters felt because people assume things and don't try to learn and understand people from different backgrounds and cultures. A lesson that we should always try to think and do better❤

Other than these topics, the book was a lot of fun and I was hooked so fast. It reminded me of gossip girl but also pretty little liars, when the blogger starts directly messaging the influencers, but with more diversity between the characters.

There is a love triangle, which I'm not generally a fan of, but the fmc didn't really seem to be torn between them. I think her feelings seem stronger for one of them than the other, due to how they talk and understand each other but I can see good and bad in both love interests at the moment so I'm not leaning either way.

The way that the book is left makes me think there might be a sequel or that it might turn into a series? I'd definitely read to see what happens next if that's the case😊

4⭐

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin and the author for the review copy, provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC of 'The Exes' by Anam Iqbal.

'The Exes' was such a quick read, I was hooked. For a debut novel, Iqbal definitely has potential and I'm excited to see what she does next. This book is your usual rich influencer boy meets normal girl but it does it so well, giving it that feel of Gossip Girl with a blog following Karim's group The Exes to the extent its obsessive and starts spreading a lot of gossip. If you want a tame book that is kinda like Gossip Girl, give this a read.

Karim's and Zara's worlds are total opposites when they collide. Karim's world is glitz, glamour and gossip. He goes to a renowned private school, his family have multiple successful businesses, and he is part of a globally renowned influencer group The Exes. While Zara is just a regular second-generation Pakistani-British teenager in East London who works part-time and studies hard to achieve her dream of studying dentistry. They have nothing in common and yet, sparks fly.


The short definition of The Exes is: British BIPOC Gossip Girl.

The longer definition of the book would be: It is a YA rom-com, reminisced of Gossip Girl, with multiple BIPOC characters (I believe only one character who appears as a larger side character is white.) and Muslim representation. The Gossip Girl connection happens in the form of Mr Ex(pose) who writes anonymously a gossip blog dedicated to The Exes. His posts are very ugly and threatening as he even goes so far as to blackmail the individual members of the influencer group with their secrets that could ruin their fame.

I asked for the ARC because I thought that it could be a light-hearted, funny rom-com that would incorporate some big topics (e.g., class differences) but generally would act as something that would entertain and amuse me before I would go back to heavier fantasy books. Unfortunately, it really fell flat for me.

The two main characters, Karim and Zara, as well as every side character have no personality. Karim's personality is "He's the brain behind the Exes, he got them together" while Zara's personality is supposed to be her intelligence. Fun fact: neither of them are smart. Karim is just a horny teenager who never talks with his family or managers about the issue of being blackmailed by Mr Ex. Zara is one of those characters where everyone says how smart she is but it's never shown in a scene. In my opinion, she might be book smart but otherwise, she's dumb. She rarely thinks things though, she doesn't trust her best friend often enough to talk with her, and she always lets her emotions get the better of her. The personalities of the other main side characters are: "she's a dancer", "he's an artist", "he knows fashion", "she has a stable family background", ... -- such good character development.

Aside from the lack of personality and true chemistry for the main characters: why is there a love triangle? Yes, Ms Goodie-Two-Shoes Zara, who has never been on a date with a boy and her only rebellion against her parents is to help her disowned brother & his wife with their business, also loves another boy. "Bad boy" Imran who is her direct neighbour and is only the bad boy because his older brother is in jail for drug dealing (which has nothing to do with Imran himself). Tbh: Zara had more chemistry and connection with him than with Karim because Imran actually listened when she talked to him. Unfortunately, the love triangle is still unresolved by 97%. If you write a happy end, make sure that the love triangle is solved (either by making it a true triangle or by having your main character talk with their second love interest to become friends).

I wish the book would just suffer from a lack of personality for its characters and a stupid love triangle. Unfortunately, it is also awfully written. I know it's an ARC but it reads like it's a first or second draft of the book. The writing is extremely juvenile and underdeveloped (Karim's POV is worse than Zara's). Every situation just happens but there's rarely any connection between them. It's very much "situation 1 happened, situation 2 happened, we talk shortly about situation 2 but it doesn't lead to situation 3 and 4 as those just happen on their own".

Furthermore, unlike in Gossip Girl, the reader never learns about Mr Ex's identity. Trying to figure out who is behind the handle is a large topic of the book as the cyberbullying by him is awful but at the end, ... nothing. There's one last blog post by Mr Ex where he's basically like "Yeah I'm done with school now as well and I will stop featuring The Exes/stop bullying people and trying to uplift people in the beauty/fashion industry". There's no resolution for his identity, no resolution for his cyberbullying and his blackmailing of Zara & The Exes (he blackmailed the members of the group to the point of an eating disorder, selling artwork that is not his, forcing someone into a car crash (Diana style, just without the death), ...); just nothing.

While the author implements topics like Islamophobia, Racism, Class Differences, Domestic Violence, Cyberbullying, Abusive Relationships etc., the author fails to do something with them. For example, Karim attends a funeral in a mosque. Mr Ex writes about it (fails to mention that it's actually a funeral) and turns it into a piece that's just Islamophobic. Karim is utterly dismayed about it and talks with his father about it for half a page. The topic of Islamophobia and Racism is never mentioned anymore. Example #2: Zara's parents disowned their oldest child because he married a black woman, which Zara's father can't accept. The resolution for the entire conflict is: everyone shouts at everyone and suddenly they are a family and the black wife is accepted. Wtf?

"The Exes" is a ya romance written by Anam Iqbal, here at her debut.

Cute, quick and funny book, characterized by a brisk pace and short chapters. A simple and lively novel that deals with some important topics such as abortion, religion, sexism, racism, domestic violence, cyberbullying, and more generally issues related to the negative effects of social media use. In my opinion, the author did an excellent job of illustrating these issues without ever losing the lightness that hovers between the pages. The Gossip Girl touch intrigued me a lot, even though I spotted the various plot twists in advance.

Karim and Zara, the protagonists with their respective first person povs, convinced me. The development of the romance seemed a bit rushed to me, but nevertheless I found it really adorable and sweet! The only thing that did not fully satisfy me was the presence of the love triangle, but that is my problem, since I am not particularly fond of this trope.

All in all, "The Exes" is an adorable and fun ya romance that captured me completely!

Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a rollercoaster, I had a lot of trouble getting into it but once I got to about the 40% mark I couldn’t put it down. It turned into the perfect ya romance with a great cast of characters and I loved that it was gossip girl inspired. Karim is the sweetest love interest and Zara is a headstrong and amazing heroine and they are such a good match.

This book deals with some heavy topic as like abortion, religion, sexism and the negative effects of social media. And I think that Anam Iqbal dealt with them very well (although I am not a Muslim so cannot judge her representation of the faith).

Summary: Karim, a renowned influencer, and Zara, an ordinary teen, find an unexpected connection amidst their different worlds despite looming threats.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book, all thoughts are my own.

i could not be asked for this review😭

i really wanted to love this book (i mean a muslim rom-com!) but it unfortunately did not live up to my high hopes.

a quick run through the plot:

karim is rich. zara is poor. they are both muslims. neither have a personality. they fall into an insta-love. zara falls in love with her childhood crush - imram. nobody has a personality. everyone is in love with zara.

they are all also muslims by the way.

oh and it's not a halal romance.

praying my Istaghfir:

i'm not going to go into depth in all of them because the more time i spend writing about this, the more annoyed i get. please note that i am not blaming only the girl: i'm blaming all of them. this is also an incomplete list.

1. there is hand-holding. this in itself was enough to send me into a shock-induced coma. HAND HOLDING!! THE NERVE!

2. her dupatta is taken off by a guy and she lets him.

3. she kisses him. i- the hand-holding was bad enough now why this??

4. karim explains to his (non-muslim) friends about how members of the opposite gender can't touch each other until they have a nikah. lets flash-forwards two paragraphs later where he's horny for his ex-girlfriend and wants to kiss her.

5. his ex-girlfriend (who is a non-muslim) aborted their child. my personal belief on abortion is that it's her body, her choice: what she wants to do with it and why isn't anybody's business. i just hated how glossed over it was that karim committed zina (sex outside of marriage). in a book that addresses how girls are always called the slut, whore (etc) and never the guys, this book really let the guys off easy. he was a lot more liberal than zara and they never talked about how they would be in a relationship where their religious beliefs are different. it was never explained how he feels about how his religious beliefs fit into his life.

6. zara was missing salah on purpose because she hadn't felt like it.

7. they were constantly alone. touching each other. and by that point, it had been mentioned more than once that meetings between the opposite genders are often chaperoned.

8. she was cheating on him with her childhood crush after getting angry at him because she thought he was cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend.

9. she undressed in front of imran on purpose.

10. kissing was talked about so casually.


go read sama's beatiful review about another very ugly and very haram romance book.


_


moving on to the characters. i almost wasn't going to do this section but it is an arc so i try to be nicer with them. (yes this is me being nice, why do you ask?)


zara is clever. zara is pretty. zara is an introvert. everyone loves zara. wait, i don't! she has no personality. @97% she still has feelings for both imran and karim. these feelings are never resolved.

karim is an influencer. yes, an influencer. he makes transition videos and lip-syncs. yes, i did have to put the book down multiple times. we got his pov every other chapter and WHY IS HE SO HORNY???

i would like to emphasise the pain i went through whilst reading this book. i was stuck in their head THE ENTIRE TIME!!!

usually, the side characters make up for the terrible mains. all of them were so.boring. one is a dancer, the other a singer AND THAT IS THEIR ENTIRE PERSONALITY!!! WHY??? they had little to no depth to them apart from their race?!


even without the bad representation of Islam, this is not a good book, and i didn't enjoy it. make of that what you will.

1★

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for my very honest thoughts!

_

tbr-review:


ooohhhh a halal muslim romance? *smashes request button*

(update: never mind)

A British South Asian Gossip Girl is a good description for The Exes. Karim is a famous social media influencer whilst Zara is just an ordinary A level student who has her sights set on university. Their chance meeting leads to each of them finding something they were missing.
The book deals with some heavy topics including abortion choices, the damage that social media exposure can do to self-esteem and relationships, and the reality of restrictive family expectations. Throw in a creepy online stalker, a love triangle and friendships under strain and you have all the ingredients of a strong debut novel.

I devoured this book! It lived up to its premise, gossip girl meets crazy rich asians, with a whole lot of drama, a couple of crazy family members and dysfunctional backstabbing friendships to put the Upper East-Siders to shame!

I particularly enjoyed it being set in London - it felt so familiar and nostalgic to read, a reminder of my own secondary school days!!

The writing style flowed easily and I was throughly entertained by Mr Ex’s gossip blog posts which had me scrambling for clues to try and decipher who they were!!

Touching upon the very real and raw moments of toxic family relationships, patriarchal biases and the harms of social media, the author did justice to the heavier topics she explored.

All in all, a strong debut novel!! There was some moments where the pacing felt a little quick, and i wasn’t a huge fan of the love triangle between Zara, Karim and Imran. Nevertheless, I adored Zara and Karim’s dynamic so so much!!

Can’t wait to see what the author writes next!