So many books come out each week that it makes it hard to decide what to read. We want to make that a little bit easier on you by sharing our favorite releases from the week and telling you our top 3 reasons why we think you’ll love them too!
This week one of our selections is Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card by Sara Saedi. It doesn’t come out until next week, but we wanted to give you a head start. Are you ready to hear more about this book and its author? Here we go…
Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card by Sara Saedi
Published by Knopf Books for Young Readers, Random House on February 6th 2018
Genres: Nonfiction/Autobiography
Pages: 288
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At thirteen, bright-eyed, straight-A student Sara Saedi uncovered a terrible family secret: she was breaking the law simply by living in the United States. Only two years old when her parents fled Iran, she didn’t learn of her undocumented status until her older sister wanted to apply for an after-school job, but couldn’t because she didn’t have a Social Security number.
Fear of deportation kept Sara up at night, but it didn’t keep her from being a teenager. She desperately wanted a green card, along with clear skin, her own car, and a boyfriend.
Americanized follows Sara’s progress toward getting her green card, but that’s only a portion of her experiences as an Iranian-“American” teenager. From discovering that her parents secretly divorced to facilitate her mother’s green card application to learning how to tame her unibrow, Sara pivots gracefully from the terrifying prospect that she might be kicked out of the country at any time to the almost-as-terrifying possibility that she might be the only one of her friends without a date to the prom. This moving, often hilarious story is for anyone who has ever shared either fear.
3 Reasons You Should Read…
Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card
by Sara Saedi
- We hadn’t read an autobiography in a while, and this was a great way to jump back into the genre. It was full of emotions (the full spectrum) and made us feel all kinds of feelings.
- If you’re in the market for a hilarious read that’s going to literally make you laugh-ou-loud, then Americanized is definitely for you. We got more than a few strange looks while reading it because we couldn’t help our laughter.
- Since it’s an autobigorahpy, it’s hard to talk about the characters, because these are real life people. But what we can say is that we really enjoyed this whole family and crew and we think you will too.
***Meet Sara Saedi***
Sara Saedi was born in Tehran, Iran smack-dab in the middle of a war and an Islamic Revolution. She entered the world to the sounds of bombs exploding near the hospital and though her memory of the day is a bit fuzzy, the life and death stakes surrounding her birth prepared Sara for the writing life. (Obviously.) Once a creative executive for ABC Daytime, Sara now writes novels for teens and TV for everyone. Credits include the ABC Daytime web series What If…(she won an Emmy), the FOX sitcom The Goodwin Games, and most importantly, discovering that Scott Foley is even hotter in person.
These days, Sara writes for the CW’s iZombie and is excited about the release of her debut novel, Never Ever. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her pug, Mabel, who pretty much outshines everyone.
