Abdi Nazemian

2019. Moud is an out gay teen living in Los Angeles with his distant father, Saeed. When Moud gets the news that his grandfather in Iran is dying, he accompanies his dad to Tehran, where the revelation of family secrets will force Moud into a new understanding of his history, his culture, and himself.

1978. Saeed is an engineering student with a promising future ahead of him in Tehran. But when his parents discover his involvement in the country’s burgeoning revolution, they send him to safety in America, a country Saeed despises. And even worse—he’s forced to live with the American grandmother he never knew existed.

1939. Bobby, the son of a calculating Hollywood stage mother, lands a coveted MGM studio contract. But the fairy-tale world of glamour he’s thrust into has a dark side.

Set against the backdrop of Tehran and Los Angeles, this tale of intergenerational trauma and love is an ode to the fragile bonds of family, the hidden secrets of history, and all the beautiful moments that make us who we are today.

Only This Beautiful Moment

Lindsay

“The end of the song is so tragic,” she says. “I don’t know why the two windows have to die to be together.”

I think of Maman and her blueprints. “The stone wall keeps them separated, but they’re a part of the stone wall. So if you break the wall, you smash the windows and they die.”

She looks at me meaningfully. “Then I guess we need a world of windows. Where everything is visible. No walls, secrets, or division.”

“The baths are sad if you use them to escape loneliness. And they’re wonderful if you use them to celebrate yourself.”

“I think Americans are so bored that they talk about things that don’t really matter,”

“And our listeners know how I feel about the word real, and the implication that anything in this world is fake. Everything is authentic, especially artifice.”

Bria

This book is so beautiful from cover to cover. I was interested in every single moment, every single word.

This was so incredible and is going to stick with me for a long time. The magic of this writing to cover stories, while fiction very much based on reality, including homophobia, racism, oppressive governments, deportation, and more, and with an overarching tone of resiliency and hope was masterful to me. I normally go into content warnings like those worried how much this is going to rip my heart out but even when certain moments are nothing but tragic or make me cry there is so much wisdom about a person not being a single moment or forever bitter from a lost love (because as hopeful as this is it’s still based in reality, some relationships truly do become lost). I am a major HEA romance reader and I was kept safe in this story. 

The love these 3 generations of fathers/sons have for each other was so powerful at times. They each had their moments of misunderstanding each other but with the alternating POVs you knew how strong their familial bond and love for each other was and that’s what carried them through. I found each POV so interesting even the very serious one of the 3. 

I don’t often read YA but if anyone ever asks me for a YA rec going forward this is going to be top of my list. 

Abigail

This was so incredible and is going to stick with me for a long time. The magic of this writing to cover stories, while fiction very much based on reality, including homophobia, racism, oppressive governments, deportation, and more, and with an overarching tone of resiliency and hope was masterful to me. I normally go into content warnings like those worried how much this is going to rip my heart out but even when certain moments are nothing but tragic or make me cry there is so much wisdom about a person not being a single moment or forever bitter from a lost love (because as hopeful as this is it’s still based in reality, some relationships truly do become lost). I am a major HEA romance reader and I was kept safe in this story. 

The love these 3 generations of fathers/sons have for each other was so powerful at times. They each had their moments of misunderstanding each other but with the alternating POVs you knew how strong their familial bond and love for each other was and that’s what carried them through. I found each POV so interesting even the very serious one of the 3. 

I don’t often read YA but if anyone ever asks me for a YA rec going forward this is going to be top of my list. 

Good? But also I don’t know? I liked the dad but was over the grandpa.

Only This Beautiful Moment

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