Olivia Abtahi is a proud Iranian-Argentinian American. Her debut novel, Perfectly Parvin, was published in 2021, receiving the SCBWI Golden Kite Honor, YALSA Odyssey Honor, and numerous starred reviews. Parvin, the protagonist, is a half-Iranian, 14-year-old girl living in the unsettling years of the Trump administration and has just been dumped by her first boyfriend for being “too much.” She is too loud, too rambunctious, and too Persian. She decides to get a boyfriend and undertakes a change. She begins to act like women in rom coms; she waxes her hair, stops eating hot Cheetos, and smiles more, and talks less. Perfectly Parvin tackles a variety of issues, but the most prevalent ones in this novel are portrayed in Abtahi’s efforts to address anti-Iranian sentiment and the pressures of “whitewashing” oneself to fit in. 

Abtahi sees herself in Parvin. “Parvin and I are a lot alike, but I think Parvin is so much cooler than I ever was. She puts herself on the right path at age 14, but it took me until I was 30 to figure a lot of things out. She is a mirror for me when I was in high school,” Abtahi says.