Huda Fahmy

Huda F Wants to Know? (Huda #3) / Huda Fahmy, Weinye Chen (Colorist)

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment 
Huda F Wants to Know? (Huda #3)
By: Huda Fahmy, Weinye Chen (Colorist)
Genre: Graphic Novel, Young Adult
Number of Pages: 224
Published: April 1, 2025
Publisher: Dial Books
Dates Read: May 7, 2025
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

In this third installment of Huda, Huda Fahmy is prepared for junior year. She’s got her “How to Kick Junior Year’s Tush” plan that includes joining all the clubs, volunteering everywhere, acing her ACTs, and writing the most amazing essays for her scholarship applications. Easy!

But then Mama and Baba announce the unthinkable: they’re getting a divorce.

Huda is devastated. As she begins to worry what the divorce means to her family and how that will affect their place in the Muslim community, her grades start to tank, she has a big fight with her best friend, and Huda feels like she has control over nothing. Will anything in her life ever feel normal again? Huda F wants to know.

As per usual, as soon as I saw Huda had a new graphic novel out, I immediately asked for a copy to read, because every book she puts out I absolutely love.

This book, though humorous at times when Huda pokes fun at herself, does deal with heavier topics: divorce and mental health. I’ve got to give Huda praise on how well both of those were handled. She showed both what she sees within the community and how her family either deals with it themselves, or how they help her. The epilogue even has information about free mental health resources, including a special hotline for young Muslims.

I will be highly recommending this (and Huda’s whole series) to those who enjoy graphic novels that can sometimes deal with tough topics, but with a dash of humor mixed within the panels. Even though Huda is going through her parents’ divorce as a young Muslim woman, this novel would still resonate with all types of readers from all types of backgrounds.

*Thank you Dial Books and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Stoked for This: April 2025

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

Y’all, it’s my birthday month so you can bet we’ve got some good stuff coming out! If you’ve been around for a bit, you’ll see some familiar authors I’ve enjoyed in the past and, as always, a few debut authors I can’t wait to see their talent.

April 1, 2025

From author Laurie Halse Anderson comes a historical middle grade fiction about thirteen-year-old Elsbeth Culpepper during the spring of 1776 struggling to survive not only the Revolutionary War but the smallpox epidemic as she searches for her missing father.

Rebellion 1776

By: Laurie Halse Anderson

Back with her third graphic novel, Huda Fahmy is ready for junior year – she’s going to join all the clubs, volunteer everywhere, and ace her ACTs but then she gets the news of her parents divorce and everything goes downhill from there.

Huda F Wants to Know?

By: Huda Fahmy

A Chinese-Filipino teenager whose world of daydreams is destroyed by a family secret that portrays the pains of growing up in this lyrical, mythology-tinged debut novel.

Sunlight Playing over a Mountain

By: Selina Li Bi

Video games, queer friends, and set in both 1998 and 2013 need any more information?

A/S/L

By: Jeanne Thornton

What else would you do after hearing about your terminal illness other than road trip to kill your estranged father?

Bad Nature

By: Ariel Courage

After the street cat, Cat, get sick in a Brooklyn, five strangers from around the neighborhood come together to help him.

Cat’s People

By: Tanya Guerrero

If you could completely erase your memories of a person, would you do it? What if a chance encounter later on makes you want your memories back?

Meet Me at Blue Hour

By: Sarah Suk

Three girls just found out they were dating the same guy, basketball star, Nate. After Nate is found bloodied and unconscious in the locker room after the big game, the girls are prime suspects. Now, they much form an alliance together to clear their name.

The Payback Girls

By: Alex Travis

April 8, 2025

Ollie is stuck between everything. They’re too girlie for their neighborhood hockey team, but not girlie enough for their boy crazy BFF, and when they have to write about “What it means to be a woman” they’re caught between fleeing and confronting their own fight for their own path.

Ollie In Between

By: Jess Callans

It’s 1954 and a former nun arrives at Gulls Next in search of answers after her pen pal’s letter mysteriously stops.

Murder at Gulls Nest

By: Jess Kidd

April 15, 2025

After a school shooting, Bea, a girl with cerebral palsy who uses a wheelchair must navigate the trauma in a world that wasn’t built for her.

Please Pay Attention

By: Jamie Sumner

I got an ARC of this one and you can read my review here 🙂

April 22, 2025

Lucretia and her mom have come to the tiny Candle Island, Maine to escape the memories of the car accident that killed her father. But the island has its own secrets, one that capture Lucretia in their wake.

Candle Island

By: Lauren Wolk

April 29, 2025

Imagine Pokémon, but with dragons and phoenixes in the skies of Seoul, meals magically appear based on your moon, and dream literally come to life.

Dreamslinger

By: Graci Kim

What would you do if you moved into a rental house with thirty feral cats? And, how would caring for them open the door for saving your home?

Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats

By: Courtney Gustafson

The sequel to Abeni’s Song where Abeni faces new challenges as she seeks to bring back the Golden Throne, evade the Witch Preist’s hunters, and find the disappeared people of her village.

Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold

By: P. Djèlí Clark

Huda F Cares? / Huda Fahmy

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment 
Huda F Cares?
By: Huda Fahmy
Genre: Graphic Novel, Humor
Number of Pages: 208
Published: October 10, 2023
Publisher: Dial Books
Dates Read: March 7, 2024
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

Huda and her sisters are actually taking a family vacation this summer – to Disney World! But, it’s not all going to be a walk in the park. First Huda must survive the 24-hour car ride from Michigan to Florida, crammed in the back seat with her sisters. Then, Huda can’t help but notice all the stares her family gets, especially when they’re praying in public – back home in Dearborn, their family blends right in with the large Muslim population, but in Florida, not so much.

This graphic novel is filled with force (but successful??) sisterly bonding, a possible new friendship, and some mixed feelings about exactly why Huda cares so much about what other people thought.

The sibling dynamics are so spot on – especially sisterly ones. So many scenarios where I thought, “Yep, my sisters and I have had a version of this fight ourselves”.

I love how the author was able to mix nostalgia with humor and still be very eye opening. Her family is very blessed back in Dearborn to be surrounded with a large Muslim community, but her parents know that’s not how it will be “out in the real world” and their trip to Disney World is kind of a tester for them. It takes Huda a bit to realize that, but she still comes out of the trip being proud to be Muslim.

Overall, I love Huda’s series and will definitely be recommending her books to loads of people. You don’t necessarily have to read her first graphic novel to understand this one at all. But this one is nice for those with sisters to read a story of a family road trip – cause we’ve all been there, right??