Theme of self worth

Mimi and Mazna struggle the most with self worth as they try to make their creative careers work. While both of them fail with their original dream, they find something that gives them comfort in the end.

Mimi spends a majority of the novel wanting to be a part of a band. He created Dulcet long before the opening of the novel, but was slowly aging out while the rest of his band mates got younger and younger. He feels happy on stage, but is jealous of Naj who he feels outshines him. Mimi berates himself throughout the novel and struggles to find peace in any of his decisions. His self worth is tied to his lack of success and it deeply hurts him. However, at the end of the novel, Mimi realizes that he can find a new passion and recreate his dream into something that he is good at. When he is brought up on stage during Naj’s concert, Mimi is consumed by the music and gives himself a chance to focus on what he really wants. There, he imagines a restaurant of his own making. Furthermore, “[t]he second the thought arrives, it’s so perfect, its so perfect he does finally cry, playing along with Naj and Jo, singing into the same microphone” (424). Mimi is no longer bound by what he sees as a failure and finds his confidence in this new path.