MEET ME ON LOVE STREET

Book Cover

Seventeen-year-old Indian Canadian Sana Merali loves all things love, especially Toronto’s Love Street, where she lives with her mother above their struggling flower shop. When gentrification threatens the tightknit community of small businesses on their street, Sana throws herself into organizing a “festival of love” that she hopes will restore their fortunes. Co-chairing the planning committee is the handsome but aloof 18-year-old Miles Desai. Sana, who’s pansexual, is drawn to him despite their opposing views on pretty much everything, and eventually their mutual attraction becomes hard to ignore. All too soon, however, Sana finds herself questioning Miles’ feelings for her and the relationships he seems to have built with her emotionally distant father and stepsister. As the Love Street Festival nears, Sana confronts shocking news, family secrets, and her own reluctance to accept change. Told from Sana’s perspective, this is a sweet, slow-burn romance with layered and engaging characters. It’s also an examination of love and its many expressions, and the transformation of rigid notions about family and belonging. The ponderous second half dampens the lively pace and crackling dialogue of the first, but the book redeems itself with an unabashedly romantic ending. The area’s residents are multiethnic. Sana and Miles both have Ismaili Muslim and Indian heritage with roots in Uganda and Tanzania, respectively; Miles’ father is Hindu.

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