The Mismatch, Sara Jafari
The Mismatch, Sara Jafari
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The Mismatch

Author: Sara Jafari

Narrator: Ajjaz Awad, Afsaneh Dehrouyeh

Unabridged: 11 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/03/2021


Synopsis

A kiss is never just a kiss in The Mismatch, a cross-generational story about love, family, faith, and finding yourself.
 
“Enlightening, poignant, and romantic . . . The Mismatch transported me back to that feeling of first love and first heartbreak.”—Sophie Cousens, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Next Year

Now that Soraya Nazari has graduated from university, she thinks it’s time to get some of the life experience she feels she’s lacking, partly due to her strict upbringing—and Magnus Evans seems like the perfect way to get it.
 
Where she’s the somewhat timid, artistic daughter of Iranian immigrants, Magnus is the quintessential British lad. They have little in common, so there’s no way Soraya could ever fall for him. What’s the harm in having some fun as she navigates her postgrad life? And he could give her some distance from her increasingly complicated home life, where things are strained by her father’s struggles, her mother’s unhappiness and her eldest sister’s estrangement under a vague cloud of shame fifteen years earlier.
 
Distracting herself with Magnus is easy at first. But just as Soraya realizes there’s more to Magnus than she thought, long-buried secrets, and hard questions, begin to surface—will any of her relationships survive the truth coming out?

Moving between modern-day London and revolutionary Iran, The Mismatch is a gorgeously written coming-of-age story that follows a young woman as she finds love in a most unexpected place, and a path in life amid two different cultures.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nilufer

Thought provoking, stunning, intense! Two woman in one family: a mother and daughter living at different cities, experiencing different life circumstances, suffering from being outsider, trying to find their own voice, searching their ways to liberate themselves, feeling lonely in the crowd, writing......more

Thank you for the gifted book, Random House. Sports, coming-of-age, romance, a Muslim main character; I really enjoyed this shiny new contemporary love story. About the book: “For a young woman who just wants to get her first kiss out of the way, a rugby player seems like the perfect mismatch. But a......more

Goodreads review by Miriam

#TheMismatch By Sara Jafari ‘The Mismatch’ is an incredible debut novel by British-Iranian writer and Faber Academy graduate, Sara Jafari. “Twenty one year old Soraya Nazari has never been kissed. If she can tick that off the list, surely everything else will fall into place and she’ll find it easier......more

Goodreads review by ;3

dont think i have the words to explain how much i identified with soraya’s muslim guilt and her fucked up family dynamics. it’s like the author reached inside of my brain and pulled everything out to put on paper......more

Goodreads review by Aya

The author is British-Iranian and she did a great job portraying the new generation of Muslim living in England and the older generation in Iran. Like most readers, I approached this book thinking that it would be a romantic comedy. Instead, it was written in two POVs, Neda and her daughter Soraya. B......more


Quotes

“An entertaining, heartening coming-of-age tale about first love, clashing cultures and finding your place in the world. Jafari balances these varying elements of her novel with a deft hand . . . relevant, enlightening, and refreshing. A rewarding read.”CultureFly (UK)

“[This] multi-layered story with relatable emotions is the beginning of a literary journey for a bright new voice.”Eastern Eye (UK)

The Mismatch transported me back to that feeling of first love and first heartbreak. Enlightening, poignant, and romantic . . . I loved it.”—Sophie Cousens, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Next Year

“A refreshing and engaging coming-of-age story centering a complex, relatable British Iranian woman straddling two worlds, and her search for identity, sense of self, and love juxtaposed against her mother’s own experiences navigating the societal expectations and familial pressures placed on young women in 1970s Iran. Sara Jafari is a compelling new voice in contemporary fiction.”—Lauren Ho, author of Last Tang Standing

“Utterly gorgeous! The Mismatch is a smart, modern romance. I adored it.”—Abbie Greaves, author of The Silent Treatment
 
“A powerful debut . . . Each scene of this moving love story reveals new depths.”Publishers Weekly

“A thoughtful exploration of how we’re all shaped by our history—and how that history can in turn shape how, and with whom, we fall in love.”—BookPage