A Show for Two

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emmit is literally the LI in cdwy (forgot his name)--down to the "bad boy" smirks and the rings and brooding personality that's just a cover for his sad, vulnerable heart. also they both have secret passions their parents would disapprove of so you can empathise with how HARD their poor lives are I had really high hopes for A Show For Two after reading Counting Down With You last year, but overall I feel like Tashie Bhuiyan’s sophomore novel fell short of the bar I had set. While the premise of the novel sounded so interesting and had so much potential, I think it ultimately ended up being CDWY but in a different font. The novel also had so many plot arcs, characters, and themes clashing with one another that it was hard for me to connect to any of the romance. THE MAN OF THE HOUR! EMMITT, MY MAIN MAN. What a soft boi? I loved him. His thoughtfulness, the attention to Mina's mental wellbeing while also not drawing attention to it and risking her acting out as a defence mechanism (because she would. She was feisty). He was great. When he saw her at a low point and brought her to her favourite place, I almost had a meltdown?

as an aussie living in the suburbs, you gotta give me something. i don't know shit about american cities, even ones as famous as new york. my biggest issue with this story is that it literally is a carbon copy of tashie bhuiyan's debut. if you've read that, you've read this. if you've only read this, don't bother to read cdwy because you already have! it's like a shitty two-for-one deal you didn't want.this book has hate-to-love, a poc romance since mina is bangladeshi and emmitt is half-chinese (his hair is dyed blond on the front cover as part of his undercover scheme, hence his darker natural roots!), a celebrity love interest, a complex sister relationship, in-depth discussions of mental health, a chaotic film club, loads of gen z antics (since i'm gen z myself), and nuanced family dynamics as the main character navigates her last year of high school.

one of the things i find most abrasive about authors joining and encroaching on fandom spaces, especially on platforms like tiktok, is that it automatically flips a switch in people's minds and all the negative reception their books receive seems to vanish into thin air. this case is no exception. despite being too old for books like this and despite counting down with you being one of my most hated books last year, i was still going to read a show for two. why? because i, too, am bangladeshi, muslim & gen z--and it seems i'm not going to find representation like that outside of this genre. Dame Mary Berry was surprised to find a blanket adorned with TV star Ben Shephard’s face in Lorraine Kelly’s dressing room.In term of the actual story, I think Bhuiyan has a very Wattpad-esque style to her storytelling. It’s not particularly a bad thing but one that you can’t help but notice as you wade through her writing and rather shallow character-building/plot arcs. I think she also struggles with a tendency to self-insert in ways that are just a little too obvious to even pretend to be subtle: case and point, Emmitt Ramos is first introduced as an actor for Foul Lady Fortune (the novel that her roommate and fellow author, Chloe Gong will be publishing this fall. Funny enough, Emmitt’s mom is named Claire Gong. See, it’s so obvious it’s almost painful lol). There's just missed opportunity after missed opportunity here. Who is the intended audience? If they're anything like me, a young woman of color who likes books and movies, then I would brace for similar opinions, especially from those who identify as film lovers. Perhaps if Bhuiyan had interrogated any idea she posits in the novel beyond surface level, I would have responded to it more positively. its very diverse (whether it does something interesting with all that diversity is whole other can of worms tho) As Mina ventures across the five boroughs with Emmitt, the city she grew up in starts to look more like home than it ever has before. Suddenly, Mina’s dreams—which once seemed impenetrable—begin to crumble, and she’s forced to ask herself: Is winning worth losing everything? it always hits when you can see how the story is unraveling at a slow pace and you can practically tell where things might go but yet it leaves you overcome all the same. mina's determination to keep her eyes on the University of Southern California because she believed it was her one & only chance to escape her parents was like witnessing a film reel unravel at the seams and the further the line went, the blurrier the images became until mina herself was left to wonder what she really was trying to chase after. the trauma she's experienced under the scrutiny of her parents who clearly didn't think she could aspire to be anything else but a disappointment to them was an incredibly hard pill to swallow, and what made it even harder were the memories that mina recounted of the days where it wasn't all like this--where she and her parents loved each other genuinely. to see how much it fractured over the years and the icy distance split between her and them felt so concerning that even when it seemed there was a spark of mina who wanted her parents to see her, and not some caricature, seeing her place clear boundaries and rise above the disgusting comments her ma and Baba make towards her meant so much to me.

I was about to burst into song, but I think the universe and Apollo forgot to gift me with good memory when it comes to music- The hot yet unattainable love interest you will never even be able to glimpse in your pathetic mortal body and soul?) She frustrated me sooooo much. I get that she had a lot of family issues with her parents, but that is no excuse to treat everyone like shit? She literally met a stranger on the street and without even knowing him, started insulting him because she has anger issues. Not only that, she also never considered her best friend's feelings or her sister's!! She was mad at the world for a good 90% of the book. The arguments were super ridiculous and most of them could've easily been avoided if she were more empathetic. I wish her support group was more aware of her. I know mental health is as silent as you let it be but if her friends and sister knew what was going on... I think the conflict was unfair. Being depressed doesn't give you a right to be terrible to people, don't get me wrong, but I think Anam was the only one who I felt was justified. Rosie just... it felt like a huge overreaction. Maybe I missed something but I definitely think that Mina trying everything in her power to get out of the suffocation of her parents outweighed the crush that Rosie had on Sofie.Kelly said: “I wore that for the Christmas show and I really love it, I like a bit of blingy silliness.” Read More Related Articles Another problem I have with her character? Her passions. She was always talking about how much she loved filming and the industry, but I never saw that passion reflected. Only the passion to win the contest and get out of her house. Also, the parts of the script that were seen... did she really win with that? I'm not an expert on screenwriting or anything, but I don't think I would enjoy a film with that script... Examples:

this is going to sound harsh, but i just don't think bhuiyan is a very strong writer. i know she's young and just starting out, but it felt so amateur. so much telling and boring, skippable writing. very wattpad-ish, too. Join us in celebrating their powerful creative ambition through work that reflects the energy and dynamism of a world in motion. mina and karina are the exact.same.person. one likes to write and the other likes to write... but screenplays this time, so it's definitely different. they're also both insufferable and as interesting as looking at white paper against a white wall. (or brown paper against a brown wall...?) Additionally, as much as I adored Karina’s relationship with her brother in CDWY, I lowkey despised Anam in this novel and how she blamed Mina and called her selfish for ditching her to pursue her dream in California. She was also so rude to her parents, omg. There were moments where my jaw dropped at the attitude she showed--if I said half of the things to my parents that Mina or Anam said to their parents in this book I would not be alive writing this review right now, LOL. for me, this just screams unoriginality. are you really so uncreative? using your friend's name is FINE, but when your friend is a ny bestselling author who is pretty well-known, it's just embarrassing lolHow shallow the familial relationships were (I believe they were flesh and cardboard, so it’s an improvement! Right?) I think this has been my problem with books from this author and Asian representations, be it South Asian among others. See, I am from the Hispanic community, so I have no hand to judge it, however, BECAUSE I’m part of a minority, I can say that not all parents are like that, and it’s sad that all the Asian representation I see nowadays just touches on that aspect. Yes, it’s incredibly accurate, more so than most, however, I believe that there is some good to be found. Some understanding to comprehend in how the parents act. Don’t get me wrong, trying to dictate your child’s way of living is unforgivable, but I feel like the main character and her sister made them out to be worse than they were.