An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh MafiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It's not a sequel to Mafi's earlier semi-contemporary smash hit A Very Large Expanse of Sea, but there's a case to be made for this one existing in the same universe. Set, like that other book, in 2002-03, the book presents America in a particularly heightened state of Islamophobia as the background, but unlike Large Expanse, this book is much less about Islamophobia and/or racism. While those bigotries lurk behind the surface, this book is focused much more on central elements of grief, mental health issues, the delicate balancing act of cultures for the children of Iranian immigrants (who frequently argue in both English and Farsi in the same conversation), and the tenuous threads on which friendships and romances may hang. As such, it feels like the story world is smaller and more introspective - which fits because while this is a short book, it pulls no emotional punches, all of which land well above the book's weight class. This is most likely a book readers will pick up once and then never again, if only because of how haunting and harrowing it is.
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