This book is a gem!! I devoured it, and can’t wait to discover more from each and every author within the pages. Come On In is a collection of short stories that revolve around the theme of immigration, written by 15 different YA authors. I picked up the book because I saw Isabel Quintero’s name, and I love everything that she has written, but I discovered so many more authors!! In this collection we read about leaving one’ s country of birth, about growing up first generation in the US, about teaching ESL, about BP checkpoints, the Muslim Ban, and being held by agents at the airport. We read about learning to love one’s family and traditions, trying to “fit in”, and about traveling to one’s new home from places like Fiji, Mexico, India, Venezuela, and Korea, among others. Each story is very different, but each story comes back to the same theme of immigration, and finding one’s home, both topics that I am extremely familiar with.

Edited by Adi Alsaid, this collection contains stories by Yamile Saied Méndez, Zoraida Córdova, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Maurene Goo, Justine Larbalestier, Sona Charaipotra, Nafiza Azad, Maria E. Andreu, Misa Sugiura, Sharon Morse, Sara Farizan, Varsha Bajaj, Lilliam Rivera, Isabel Quintero, and the editor himself.

I cried several times reading these stories. While many of us come from different countries, our experiences are often overlapping and similar. In All The Colors Of Goodbye, Nafiza Azad depicts how a family has to leave one of their children behind because he is 21 or over: I was that child who was left behind.  “You see, the people who decide who gets to go say he is too old to be considered a dependent of the family, as if age determines the bond a person has with their relatives. The government of this new country we are moving to won’t let him come with us, so my parents decided that he is old enough to be left alone.”

And from The Wedding by Sara Farizan: “I wondered how many people might not find the love of their lives because they were not allowed to live in certain countries.” My partner and I would never have met each other and created our own family if we had both followed the rules imposed on us. I’m glad we didn’t, but at the same time I also wonder how this will all affect our children. 

I highlighted so many more areas: phrases I related to, phrases that I want to remember, moments that are important and that we all need to remember. This really is such a rich collection of stories, and one I recommend to everyone (to those who will relate to many of the protagonists, but also to those who would benefit from learning more about what it feels like to constantly be searching for home). 

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.