Unlearning What Home Means. A tender, voice-driven YA coming-of-age novel about cultural identity, first love, a secret artistic talent, the ache of fitting in, intergenerational love, and learning that home was never a place you had to escape

I'd been studying the popular crowd since September. Learning their patterns. Waiting for the day I could land. At Franklin High, Chloe Thompson is the sun and everyone else orbits. Today she finally waved me over. So when she asked what I did this weekend, I didn't say the truth. I didn't tell her about the puja, or the marigolds, or my grandmother lighting the diya with shaking hands. I said I went to a sci-fi convention. The lie came out smooth.
Practiced. My name is Samira, and I've gotten very good at being two people. At home, I'm the granddaughter who sets the brass thali and pretends not to notice that Grandma Lalitha is forgetting more every week. These rituals keep her anchored, my mother says. You need to be there. At school, I'm the girl with the safe gold earrings and the tight braid, hiding the tiffin box of warm daal in my locker so no one smells home on me. And in a notebook no one's allowed to see, I'm something else entirely. An artist. Then a boy with paint-stained fingers leans over my screen. A documentary I almost said no to starts asking the questions I've been running from. And one disastrous dinner threatens to expose every lie I've told to get a seat at Chloe's table. "First impressions matter, beta, " my mother always says.
"You never get a second chance." But what happens when the person you're impressing isn't worth becoming someone else for? What happens when the home you were ashamed of is the only one that ever felt real? Before her grandmother forgets her name for good, Samira has to decide which version of herself she can actually live with. Unlearning What Home Means is a tender, voice-driven YA coming-of-age novel about cultural identity, first love, a secret artistic talent, the ache of fitting in, intergenerational love, and learning that home was never a place you had to escape. Perfect for readers who love coming-of-age stories, Indian-American voices, swoony first-love arcs, complicated mothers and grandmothers, and an ending that feels like coming home.