House of Yesterday
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Taking inspiration from the author's own Afghan-Uzbek heritage, this contemporary YA debut is a breathtaking journey into the grief that lingers through generations of immigrant families, and what it means to confront the ghosts of your past.
Struggling to deal with the pain of her parents’ impending divorce, fifteen-year-old Sara is facing a world of unknowns and uncertainties. Unfortunately, the one person she could always lean on when things got hard, her beloved Bibi Jan, has become a mere echo of the grandmother she once was. And so Sara retreats into the family business, hoping a summer working on her mom’s latest home renovation project will provide a distraction from her fracturing world.
But the house holds more than plaster and stone. It holds secrets that have her clinging desperately to the memories of her old life. Secrets that only her Bibi Jan could have untangled. Secrets Sara is powerless to ignore as the dark truths of her family’s history rise in ghostly apparitions -- and with it, the realization that as much as she wants to hold onto her old life, nothing will ever be the same.
Told in lush, sweeping prose, this story of secrets, summer, and family sacrifice will chill you to the bone as the house that wraps Sara in warmth of her past becomes the one thing she cannot escape…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
On Long Island, an Afghan Uzbek 16-year-old uncovers family secrets while navigating grief in this paranormal ghost story by debut author Zargarpur. Sara Amani's life is unraveling: her parents, Madar and Padar, have moved into different houses in preparation for a divorce, and her beloved maternal grandmother, Bibi Jan, has dementia. Sara used to confide in Bibi Jan, but now feels as if she has no one with whom to share her inner turmoil, so she buries her emotions and retreats from her cousins and friends. As a distraction, she assists with the family's real estate business, photographing and helping Madar to flip an abandoned home. There, she sees an apparition of a young Bibi Jan. Desperate to uncover facets of her grandmother that she never knew, Sara delves into Bibi Jan's past, but her new obsession sows worry within her community. Inspired by her own family history, Zargarpur pulls from multiple literary traditions, including Central Asian fairy tales, Western gothic novels, and contemporary immigration fiction, employing lyrical prose and harrowing ambiance to craft an eerie supernatural debut. The result is a dreamlike novel that engagingly examines grief, healing, and preserving the stories of the past. Ages 14–up.