What Will People Think?

Journalist Hamdan debuts with a heartfelt coming-of-age novel about a mid-20s New Yorker who inadvertently exposes her Palestinian American family’s secrets while moonlighting as a stand-up comic. It’s 2011 and Mia Almas, a fact-checker for a popular romance column, hopes to one day find a love of her own, even if it means doggedly scrolling her boss’s Facebook page, just in case he breaks up with his girlfriend. She still lives with her conservative immigrant grandparents, who raised her after the death of her single father when she was 15. Mia knows her grandparents would never approve of her making advances on a man, nor of her sets at comedy clubs across the city, which become increasingly free-spirited and raunchy after she meets a stylish and confident Arab American neighbor. A crisis ensues after Mia strikes back at an Islamophobic heckler and her outburst is covered in the media, forcing her to reexamine her priorities. Hamdan balances levity with poignancy through a series of revelations, such as the reason behind Mia’s father’s death on 9/11, why her grandparents left Palestine, and why they remain so cautious. This will linger in readers’ minds. (May)