
At Tundra Books, we want you to get to know and love our creators as much as you know and love their books. Our creator spotlight series will introduce you to the people behind some of your favorite titles . . . this week, say hello to Jackie Khalilieh!
About the Author:
JACKIE KHALILIEH is a Palestinian Canadian writer with a penchant for Samoyeds, to-do lists and staying up way too late. She is passionate about positive representation within her writing. Something More, her debut YA novel, was shortlisted for the Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz Award, as well as the Snow Willow Award and the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award, and was selected for several Best Books of 2023 lists, including the New York Public Library and Audible Canada among others. She resides just outside Toronto, Canada, with her husband and two daughters, continuing to complain nightly about having to cook dinner.
Fast Five with Jackie Khalilieh:
If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
This is going to be a boring answer, but I’m happy living where I am now. As much as I complain about the cold or the humidity in the summer, being somewhere with four seasons is important to me. So is being close to my family. Every time I go away, I get very homesick.
Younger me would have answered New York City though.
What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better?
Sleeping in! And an iced coffee, made the way I like (too much ice, too much cream).
Which meal is your favorite: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?
I make a mean breakfast! On weekends I pretend to be a disgruntled diner cook and my daughters are my regulars who don’t pay or tip. But if I don’t have a good dinner, then it puts me in a bad mood! I just wish it wasn’t always me having to make it! (see bio)
What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?
My younger daughter and I were lucky enough to attend Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in November of 2024. We had the best time! But now she wants to go to concerts all the time and I’m like, sorry, I can’t just ask your favorite singers to come to Toronto!
What do you look for in a friendship?
As an autistic person, making and maintaining friendships has been a lifelong challenge. My friends are so smart! Funny, talented, kind, understanding and patient.
Books by Jackie Khalilieh:
You Started It
By Jackie Khalilieh
336 Pages | Age 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774884751 | Tundra Books
Available: May 20, 2025
Seventeen-year-old Jamie Taher-Foster has big plans for senior year. She’s made a list of things and places in Toronto she and her boyfriend of three years, Ben Cameron, need to check off before graduating. And the biggest plan of all: a very special night for the two of them at the upcoming Winter Formal. But then Ben arrives back home after a summer away with an unthinkable announcement: he wants to break up. And when Jamie discovers him with Olivia Chen the next day, she is determined to get him back. Even if that means fake dating the younger, curly-haired, TikTok dancer Axel Dahini, whose bicycle she accidentally ran over. Though she and Axel have nothing in common aside from their shared Arab heritage – she’s a messy, type A with anxiety; he’s carefree but meticulous – their forced time together brings them to better understand one another. And for Jamie, it just might mean learning that not all experiences or people need to be crossed off a list.
Something More
By Jackie Khalilieh
334 Pages | Age 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9781774882153 | Tundra Books
Fifteen-year-old Jessie, a quirky loner obsessed with the nineties, is diagnosed as autistic just weeks before starting high school. Determined to make a fresh start and keep her diagnosis a secret, Jessie creates a list of goals that range from acquiring two distinct eyebrows to getting a magical first kiss and landing a spot in the school play. Within the halls of Holy Trinity High, she finds a world where things are no longer black and white and quickly learns that living in color is much more fun. But Jessie gets more than she bargained for when two very different boys steal her heart, forcing her to go off-script.