Full disclosure: I was a little skeptical when a review copy of Syed M. Masood’s More Than Just a Pretty Face showed up on my porch. Not because it was a YA romance about Pakistani American teenagers but because it’s a YA romance about Pakistani American teenagers written by a cis, hetero, Pakistani, Muslim man.

Was it reasonable for me to be skeptical? Maybe. Was it fair? No. It absolutely was not, and Masood proved that on pretty much every page. Because More Than Just a Pretty Face is a sweet, wise, deep, funny, careful, caring look at how kindness is the cornerstone of not only love but also happiness.

It was also a surprising one.

Let’s start with that pretty face. It doesn’t belong to the female love interest.

It belongs to the male protagonist, Danyal Jilani, who’s smarter than he thinks he is but doesn’t care to show it because he’s never quite good enough for his father anyway, and he would much rather be a chef than a cardiologist. The only people he’s really concerned about pleasing is Kaval, his best friend’s twin sister, and her family, so he’ll move up in their estimation from mediocre marriage prospect to a stellar one.

His mother, however, is concerned that Kaval’s expectations are a bit shallow, and a bit selfish, for her only son and continues to arrange rishta (potential candidate meetings) for him. One is with the Akrams, where Danyal meets their daughter Bisma. The two are sent for coffee alone – a deviation from the norm – and Bisma reveals a “sordid” secret, one which makes her unmarriable in the eyes of the community. Even if a boy were to accept her, were that secret to get out, his family would be shamed along with her own. Danyal, still intent on marrying Kaval and not planning on matching with anyone else, still finds that he enjoys spending time with Bisma. The two become friends and spend increasing amounts of time together when Bisma starts helping Danyal with a project for school.

I am sure you can see where this is going.

Romance novels tend to follow specific formulae, so the question when reviewing them is what makes them different or special. As I mentioned above, the answer with respect to More Than Just a Pretty Face is: a lot. I’ll stick with the big three because 1) I don’t want this to be an endless post, and 2) I don’t want to give too much away.

1) All of the women in this novel are incredibly intelligent – both intellectually and emotionally… even those we don’t end up liking very much. The men, who are by no means foolish, rely on them (even if, like Danyal’s father, they’d never admit it) for cues about how best to react in a variety of situations. They are, for the most part, 100% okay with female leadership, which is a subtle nod to the way many traditional families function. The man is the public face, but the woman takes point internally.

Without Bisma’s guidance, Danyal would have taken the easy way out on his school project; he might have won the Renaissance Man competition, but he would have hated himself. Without Danyal’s mother, his father would never have adapted to viewing happiness as more important than success. Without Danyal’s mother, Bisma’s father would never have come to see that the whole of his daughter was more important than a single mistake. Even though all of these victories are private, they are nonetheless essential.

2) The whole point of a romance is to follow the main character and their potential partner (or partners, if there’s a conflict) through the process of becoming a couple. Most romance novels set up a sense of time, establish context, and do a bit of narrow world building. More Than Just a Pretty Face gives readers a wider look at not only the issues that affect Danyal and Bisma but also those facing their singular community: expectation vs. reality, religious radicalization, historical truth vs. the European lens, love vs. responsibility, family vs. honor, and individuality vs. community.

And well-played to Masood because people need that look. And what better place to put it than a novel where it can be woven into a story? A story aimed at teenagers who are still open to new ideas, who have never lived with that sort of conflict (but may have friends who do), or who have friends who, like Danyal, are searching for a compromise between tradition and modernity. (I loved that Danyal found a balance between loving whom he wanted to love and including his parents in the final decision.)

The folx running around 2020 refusing to wear masks and waving their guns likely aren’t going to change their minds, but their kids? We still have a chance with them. We need to take that chance, and More Than Just a Pretty Face is one way to do that. It’s one way to remind those kids we’re not all the same and, if we were, this would be a boring-ass planet to live on. We are, however, all people, and we’re all fighting the good fight – even if the individual battles take different forms.

3) Yes. Yes, teenagers are dramatic and irritating, and sometimes they are really, really dumb. They smell bad straight out of the shower, and they acknowledge what you say and then claim to have forgotten it (unless the consequence of not doing the thing is missing out on something else they really want to do). They think they know everything and aren’t afraid to tell you in the middle of your sentence, especially if the subject is something you have a graduate degree in. They slam the door in your face. They take the last tortilla before you’ve had any.

But they’re also smart and sensitive, and most of them care so much they don’t know how to tell you, which is why they’re so dramatic and irritating and dumb. Everything is huge to them because it’s new and scary and overwhelming, and they don’t know how to explain it because it’s all those things.

They want to be their own people and are starting to understand needs and wants, but they’re afraid you won’t approve and they still need you to, so they push you away because it’s easier than hearing you say no. They understand so much more than we think they do – probably more than us because they don’t have baggage and layers upon layers of programming that tell themselves to smile at a boss they want to punch in the face (as a totally random example).

They see people clearly for who and what they are, just as Danyal sees beyond Bisma’s mistake to who she truly is with a clarity none of the adults can manage. And as the reader, we trust his judgment.

We should make sure that carries over to our own kids, don’t you think?

More Than Just a Pretty Face by Syed M. Masood (Little Brown For Young Readers) is out now.