Sahar asks Parveen how to undergo a sex-change operation, as she wonders if life in Iran would be easier as a man. Sahar leaves the party early, but first befriends Parveen. Sahar also meets a pimp and prostitute called Mother and Daughter. The party is wild and uncomfortable for Sahar, who meets Parveen, a transgendered woman, as well as Farshad, a large security guard. To cheer her up, Ali invites Sahar to a party at his house. Sahar’s gay older cousin, Ali, knows about Sahar and Nasrin’s secret relationship. When asked, Sahar claims her sadness comes from the prospect of not seeing Nasrin anymore. Sahar is distraught, while Nasrin hides her emotions. Nasrin’s parents have arranged for her to marry Reza, a medical student with a high social status. As the novel begins, Sahar’s father takes her to a party at Nasrin’s house, unaware that it’s an engagement celebration. Sahar is a shy, studious girl, while the outgoing Nasrin fancies becoming a Bollywood entertainer. However, since homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran, they must keep their feelings for one another a secret and only show intimacy in private. Sahar is in love with her best friend, Nasrin, who has felt the same about Sahar since they were six. Narrated in the first person by seventeen-year protagonist Sahar, the story begins in Tehran, Iran.

If You Could Be Mine won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Children’s/Young Adult Novels, was listed as one of Rolling Stone’s 40 Best YA Novels, a 2014 ALA Rainbow List Top 10 Title, a Booklist Top 10 First Novels for Youth 2013, and a Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2013. Desperate to remain together, Sahar may be willing to sacrifice her own body by undergoing sex reassignment surgery so that she can legally marry Nasrin as a man.

As the two women continue to love each other in secret, matters are complicated when Nasrin’s parents arrange for her to marry an unknown man.

Set in Iran, the story revolves around the forbidden lesbian love affair between best friends Sahar and Nasrin, two young Iranian women struggling to win their families’ approval and deal with their country’s oppressive traditions. Iranian-American author Sara Farizan’s debut novel If You Could Be Mine (2013) is a young-adult, romantic fiction.

If you could be mine by sara farizan