Mixed Feelings

Amini, Sara and Amin, Shadia.(Illustrator) Mixed Feelings: A Graphic Novel
April 7, 2026 by Graphix
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

In this graphic novel, we meet Sara. She is a 6th grader who has just moved to a different neighborhood in Houston to be closer to her father's electronics repair shop, so she is not near her best friend Monica, although they will still attend the same school. Sara's mother is from Colombia, and her father is from Iran, so the family (which includes younger siblings Davud and Mimi) speaks both Spanish and Farsi. Monica has attended a dance camp over the summer and become close to Aneliese, who calls Sara "Chapstick" and isn't really Sara's favorite person. Sara's father wants her to get involved in school activities, and she takes a shine to drama club, where she wins the role of an elf in the production of Santa's Space Jamboree. She also has to attend Persian school to reinforce her language skills, but the other students are mean and don't consider her Persian enough. She wishes they were nicer, since she is dealing with increasingly hairy legs, arms, sideburns, and even a unibrow. Her mother says she can't shave, but she does. Dealing with itchy arms and the occasional cut is something another girl in her Persian class seems to understand, but no one else seems to. Sara loves acting so much that she and her mother wait all day for an audition for a local cooking show, only to be turned away when the auditions close at 4:00 by a woman who berates Sara's mother for not speaking English. Throughout the book, Sara deals with her mixed race identity, and there will be more of her story when the sequel, Mixed Signals, releases.

This was an interesting look at the life of a tween in 1999. There are not too many cultural references, so modern readers will feel right at home. It's a bit odd that Sara's hair seems to appear suddenly, ut the only other book that addresses this issue is Wientge's Karma Khullar's Mustache. The illustrations style is similar to Gale Galligan's or Michelle Mee Nutter's, which will make this popular with readers who can't get enough brightly colored graphic novels about tweens who are anxious about their own personal identity. I will probably purchase a copy.