A Barbershop Quartet Walked Into Amira’s Basement…

The Chai Factor by Farah Heron

Dear Reader,

Do you remember the first book you dove into to escape Pandemic Life? I’ll never forget.

Amira is on the brink of earning her master’s degree in engineering. There’s just one little thing in her way: the barbershop quartet taking up half of her basement apartment. Throw in thoughtful commentary on cultural differences and some swoony enemies-to-lovers Romance and: HERE, TAKE MY MONEY! That was all I needed to know to put this book on my TBR list. Once I realized Farah Heron set the story in my home-away-from-home Toronto (Salad King, I miss you), I was falling all over myself to open to this book. What happened after is a long story. Where do I start?

At the beginning, of course, (don’t @ me, I know a bunch of you see how it ends before you begin). And that’s exactly what I did one day in April 2020, settled into my recliner with my hot tea nearby, (regrettably not chai), and my cat in my lap. I made it approximately halfway through Chapter One when I realized that pandemic life had scrambled my focus: I was neither able to read for longer than 10 minutes, nor able to responsibly process the emotions of an enemies-to-lovers Romance, especially not one that begins as startlingly as this one does.

I have seen The Chai Factor reviewed as a fluffy rom-com and I have to say that I quite disagree. I find that it’s an angsty story focused on Amira’s growth towards embracing her own self-awareness and confidence, well balanced by the lighter-hearted preparations of a barbershop quartet competition, and the temptation of dreamy Duncan. Since I’m older than 30-year-old Amira, and I remember the shaken-not-stirred emotional mess that was the start of that shiny new decade, I’m also qualified to call it a coming-of-age story. I went through a crisis of self-worth and a ‘What am I even doing with my life?’ fall-out around age 30, and the emotional roller coaster is real.

Along the path of Amira’s personal journey to for-real adulthood (the kind where you recognize you need to be your own hero), she is faced with a lot of highly specific personal, community and family turmoil. The vulnerability these moments dump on her is so fast, and so much, that it felt impossible to bear. Even though I grew up in a different culture and community, I found quite a bit of Amira’s experiences highly relatable. Like, a little too relatable. Hard to take at a time in my life when everything was hard to take. In real life, I was constantly focused on things like grocery shopping for seniors during a pandemic, and trying my best to ensure that my friends and family—and me, when I had headspace to think about myself—didn’t crumble under the pressure of being all but locked in our homes. I didn’t have room to handle even fictional stress EVEN knowing the ending would be happy. I put The Chai Factor down to continue another day.

Another day finally came, and I made it through Chapter One, and Chapter Two, then had to take another break. Over time I would sit down and get through a few more chapters, then walk away from the fictional upheaval because it felt too real, and reality was already too real. I continued to see vibrant praise for The Chai Factor everywhere I looked online, and this would remind me that I needed to know what happened next. And that I was allowed to take that time for myself. Also, I was jealous that all of these other readers knew what happened, and I still didn’t!

Secondary characters at times take up as much emotion as main characters in this book, enriching the reading experience and creating a truly dynamic and realistic story. I wanted to know more about them, allllllll of them. Would everyone get an H.E.A.? How was Amira going to handle the dissonance in her own home? How was this H.A.S. (happy angry story: I just made that up) going to wend its way to H.F.N.? Would it achieve H.E.A.? How far were those sexy The Princess Bride references going to go? I had to know.

Dear Reader, I did not finish this book until January 2021. I am not afraid to D.F.N. a book, even if it’s well written and interesting; if I’m not feeling it, I will not force it. But that isn’t what took me so long with The Chai Factor, it was ME that took so long. I took so long to do everything in that time, from laundry to my work (including blogging), to texting my best friends back in single emoji replies. It was reassuring that this book, with its huge emotions and layered love story, was going to wait for me as long as I needed it to.

This is a really long letter, isn’t it? Rather different than my usual. But, this was a different reading experience, and I wanted to record that as my contribution to the pandemic time capsule. This is also the first time in almost a year that words have flowed from my heart directly through my fingertips, and I’ve decided to celebrate with my my new friends Amira and Duncan (and let me tell you they know how to have a good time *fans self*). You’ll have to read The Chai Factor to get the answers to all of my questions, I think I’ve rambled enough here, but trust me when I say: this book is meaningful AND swoony. I look forward to catching up with this cast in Farah’s Accidentally Engaged.

Love From,
The True North

P.S. This blog is fueled by tea, chocolate, my editor Maria, and a Canadian Romance TBR list that won’t quit. Knowing someone is reading it and enjoying it is the best feeling ever! If you have a few dollars to spare, I would benefit from a ko-fi to help cover my web hosting fee. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter for monthly roundups of the latest in CanLit Romance novels, book sales, and more @CanLitRomance.