House of Yesterday

A contemporary YA debut, with magical realism elements, about an Afghan-Uzbek girl who confronts the ghosts of her immigrant family’s past, inspired by the Afghan-Uzbek author’s own history.

Sixteen-year-old Sara is reeling from her parents’ impending divorce when she first stumbles upon a haunting apparition of her grandmother in a house her family is renovating. Except her grandmother is still alive, though as her beloved Bibi Jan’s dementia progresses, it feels that she is less present with each day.

As Sara desperately clings to the living memories in the house, her huge Afghan-Uzbek family’s secrets and her grandmother’s complicated history begin to rise to the surface. But she knows she’ll have to face the present eventually, no matter how much it hurts to leave her grandmother’s younger self behind—that is, if the house lets her leave at all.