Book Review: How It All Blew Up (YA) by Arvin Ahmadi

 How It All Blew Up was based on author Arvin Ahamdi's 2018 trip to Rome and is about learning how to live your truth.

'"It's hard enough living one life; no one should have to go through the trouble of living two."' (p. 260)

Eighteen-year-old, Amir Azadi is Muslim, Iranian, and gay. It's too big a mouthful for him to repeat to his parents so he keeps the gay part a secret. He keeps his secret until he is blackmailed. Then he...runs away. He runs away to Rome; he runs into the heart of his tribe.

Buy this book

How It All Blew Up

Arvin Ahmadi

Published by Viking

an imprint of Penguin Random House

Published in 2020

How It All Blew Up is composed of short chapters. I globbed the story up in huge mouthfuls. This reader-friendly book explores meaty topics such as prejudice. What it's like to be Muslim in North America. What it's like to be a gay youth with traditional, religious parents. Thank you Arvin Ahmadi for helping to open my eyes. 

Virtual Author Reading

Wednesday, February 10

Island Storyteller on Stage (short story)

by Leanne Dyck

This short story was inspired by my life

Poem

Sunday, February 14

The Crush (poem)

by Leanne Dyck

This poem was inspired by St. Valentine's Day

Do you remember your first crush?

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Sharing my Author Journey...

I summarized my 2021 writing goals as hatch (writing a manuscript), dispatch (sending a manuscript to publishers), and patch (rewriting a manuscript). All January I...

have been waltzing between "hatch" and "dispatch". Last week I waltzed with "dispatch". This manuscript has taught me tons. This week it taught me how to organize a manuscript. Or, rather, how to organize it. I'll continue to work on that next month and maybe the week after. 

However, while doing that I'm also writing two or maybe three short stories. Who can keep track? And I am having tons of fun.