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mabellene's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Racism
Moderate: Murder, War, Body shaming, and Drug use
Minor: Vomit and Infidelity
theglossreview's review against another edition
I wished I had checked the content warnings before. Terrible things are described graphically. Just awful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Animal cruelty, Murder, Medical content, Gore, Blood, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, and Physical abuse
cassiealexandra's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.75
Wow. It took me quite a while to get through this “middle grade/YA” book, but it sure was worth it. Nayeri tells the story of his immigration from Iran to Edmond, Oklahoma with so much detail and humor. This is mainly due to the choice he made to share his memories through the lens of his seventh-grade self. Everything was beautifully written and the strong voice we get in middle school Daniel is mature and wise beyond his years, which makes sense with his refugee experience. He takes us on a meandering path from his earliest memories of grandparents to his most recent memory of his father coming from Iran to visit America, paying his classmates a hello as well. Daniel takes us from Iran to London, to Dubai, UAE, to Italy, and eventually settling in Oklahoma. From start to finish I was captured by the stories, enveloped in his experience, and forced to think about my own memories and life’s meaning.
My one issue was that it included perhaps just a little too much middle-school humor, bathroom talk in particular, but it is definitely true to the junior high boys I have worked with in the past or know presently. This is a me thing, a personal preference, but even in these sections, Nayeri makes points about class, immigration, and social standing.
I said the prose was meandering. There are no chapter divisions and one story bleeds into another, sometimes circling back at a later time. Daniel tells his story as a modern-day Scheherazade, holding the interest of his audience throughout. At one point, Nayeri writes: “Mrs. Miller says I have ‘lost the plot,’ and am now just making lists of things that happened to fill space. But I replied that she is beholden to a Western mode of storytelling that I do not accept and that the 1,001 Nights are basically Scheherazade stalling for time, so I don’t see the difference.” If I had any trouble with this book, it is likely because I am also beholden to a Western lens.
The bottom line: This was a beautiful fictionalized memoir written from the perspective of a seventh-grade boy, full of hope and heartache.
— NOTES —
Genres: literary fiction; middle grade to YA, but maybe more accessible to adults
POV: first-person, single
Content: domestic violence, refugee experience, divorce, animal death, mentions of war
— MY RATING CONSIDERATIONS —
(all out of 5)
Pace: 4
Enjoyment: 4.5
Craft: 5
My Gut Feeling: 5
Total Stars: 4.625
My one issue was that it included perhaps just a little too much middle-school humor, bathroom talk in particular, but it is definitely true to the junior high boys I have worked with in the past or know presently. This is a me thing, a personal preference, but even in these sections, Nayeri makes points about class, immigration, and social standing.
I said the prose was meandering. There are no chapter divisions and one story bleeds into another, sometimes circling back at a later time. Daniel tells his story as a modern-day Scheherazade, holding the interest of his audience throughout. At one point, Nayeri writes: “Mrs. Miller says I have ‘lost the plot,’ and am now just making lists of things that happened to fill space. But I replied that she is beholden to a Western mode of storytelling that I do not accept and that the 1,001 Nights are basically Scheherazade stalling for time, so I don’t see the difference.” If I had any trouble with this book, it is likely because I am also beholden to a Western lens.
The bottom line: This was a beautiful fictionalized memoir written from the perspective of a seventh-grade boy, full of hope and heartache.
— NOTES —
Genres: literary fiction; middle grade to YA, but maybe more accessible to adults
POV: first-person, single
Content: domestic violence, refugee experience, divorce, animal death, mentions of war
— MY RATING CONSIDERATIONS —
(all out of 5)
Pace: 4
Enjoyment: 4.5
Craft: 5
My Gut Feeling: 5
Total Stars: 4.625
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death and Domestic abuse
Minor: War
n_degeorgia's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
a very important read! the first hand tale of what it's like to leave your home country and everything you love and are proud of there and be transplanted into another country where nobody understands you, is racist and violent, and you experience poverty - told through the voice and narration of a child. So good!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Excrement, Violence, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Animal death, Islamophobia, and Animal cruelty
jamiejanae_6's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief, Xenophobia, Classism, Excrement, Racism, Abandonment, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Physical abuse, Blood, and Bullying
zerofoxx's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
There were some great meanings behind the story. I was bored and also wanted to keep reading at the same time. The book was written very uniquely but felt very scattered in a way that was difficult at times. I felt as if it was leading up to a big ending but it didn't. For ever bad there was a good in this book and it has me torn on how to feel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
okiecozyreader's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
I highly recommend this video introducing Daniel and his mother: https://youtu.be/YXNuhG7_hLo
This book won the Printz (ya book award) and is a memoir by Khousrou Daniel Nayari. I have wanted to read this book for a while, and I have had some time recently with my 15 year old son, so I got to listen to it with him. Being in Oklahoma (and my neighborhood backs up to Edmond, Oklahoma which he mentions throughout. It was so fun to hear him talk about places we know - even though many were during a difficult time of his life). I love that he narrates this memoir.
He has had such an interesting life - being born in Iran. His mother’s life was threatened because she became a Christian, and they became refugees - for 10 months in Dubai, then in Italy, and finally in Oklahoma. The book goes in not a linear format, it goes back and forth in memories and how things relate together, ending with a visit from his father to Oklahoma. It is all told almost as if it’s written by him as a high school student - his memories in school and observing the world around him. But it sounds like a teenager - with lots of poop stories and random thoughts. My son thought it had too much rambling at times, but I loved listening to it with him. And I’m even more grateful that Khousrou shared his story with us.
Kind of like how his story is “rambling”, it is somewhat inspired by 1001 Nights:
“In the 1,001 Nights, Scheherazade—the rememberer of all the world’s dreams—told stories every night to
the king, so he would spare her life.” (First page)
Ch 4 (audio)
“So the riddle asks, what makes the champion a coward?”
“Need?”
“Yes. The weakness of needing something.”
—
“…stories get better as they get more true.”
—
“You don’t get to choose what you remember.
A patchwork memory is the shame of a refugee.”
Ch 5
“One, every story is the sound of a storyteller begging to stay alive.”
—
“THE LESSON HERE IS that your happiest memories can become your saddest all of a sudden.”
Ch 8
“Dear reader, you have to understand the point of all these stories. What they add up to. Scheherazade was trying to make the king human again. She made him love life by showing him all of it, the funny parts about poop, the dangerous parts with demons, even the boring parts about what makes marriages last.
Little by little, he began to feel the joy and sadness of others.
He became less immune, less numb, because of the stories.”
Ch 9
“The point of the Nights is that if you spend time with each other—if we really listen in the parlors of our minds and look at each other as we were meant to be seen—then we would fall in love. We would marvel at how beautifully we were made. We would never think to be villain kings, and we would never kill each other. Just the opposite.
The stories aren’t the thing. The thing is the story of the story.”
—
“In a refugee camp, it’s the waiting that will kill you.
The whole point of a refugee camp is that there are actual people trying to kill you.
But really, it’s the slow numbing death of hopelessness that does it. You have to imagine a room that’s just a cement cube—nothing beautiful in it. If you’re not careful, this is also what becomes of the parlor of your mind.” (He references the parlor of the mind a few times and I love this idea)
“DON’T KNOW HOW MY MOM was so unstoppable despite all that stuff happening. I dunno. Maybe it’s anticipation.
Hope.
The anticipation that the God who listens in love will one day speak justice.
The hope that some final fantasy will come to pass that will make everything sad untrue.
Unpainful.
That across rivers of sewage and blood will be a field of yellow flowers blooming. You can get lost there and still be unafraid. No one will chase you off of it. It’s
yours. A father who loves you planted it for you. A mother who loves you watered it. And maybe there are other people who are kind…”
This book won the Printz (ya book award) and is a memoir by Khousrou Daniel Nayari. I have wanted to read this book for a while, and I have had some time recently with my 15 year old son, so I got to listen to it with him. Being in Oklahoma (and my neighborhood backs up to Edmond, Oklahoma which he mentions throughout. It was so fun to hear him talk about places we know - even though many were during a difficult time of his life). I love that he narrates this memoir.
He has had such an interesting life - being born in Iran. His mother’s life was threatened because she became a Christian, and they became refugees - for 10 months in Dubai, then in Italy, and finally in Oklahoma. The book goes in not a linear format, it goes back and forth in memories and how things relate together, ending with a visit from his father to Oklahoma. It is all told almost as if it’s written by him as a high school student - his memories in school and observing the world around him. But it sounds like a teenager - with lots of poop stories and random thoughts. My son thought it had too much rambling at times, but I loved listening to it with him. And I’m even more grateful that Khousrou shared his story with us.
Kind of like how his story is “rambling”, it is somewhat inspired by 1001 Nights:
“In the 1,001 Nights, Scheherazade—the rememberer of all the world’s dreams—told stories every night to
the king, so he would spare her life.” (First page)
Ch 4 (audio)
“So the riddle asks, what makes the champion a coward?”
“Need?”
“Yes. The weakness of needing something.”
—
“…stories get better as they get more true.”
—
“You don’t get to choose what you remember.
A patchwork memory is the shame of a refugee.”
Ch 5
“One, every story is the sound of a storyteller begging to stay alive.”
—
“THE LESSON HERE IS that your happiest memories can become your saddest all of a sudden.”
Ch 8
“Dear reader, you have to understand the point of all these stories. What they add up to. Scheherazade was trying to make the king human again. She made him love life by showing him all of it, the funny parts about poop, the dangerous parts with demons, even the boring parts about what makes marriages last.
Little by little, he began to feel the joy and sadness of others.
He became less immune, less numb, because of the stories.”
Ch 9
“The point of the Nights is that if you spend time with each other—if we really listen in the parlors of our minds and look at each other as we were meant to be seen—then we would fall in love. We would marvel at how beautifully we were made. We would never think to be villain kings, and we would never kill each other. Just the opposite.
The stories aren’t the thing. The thing is the story of the story.”
—
“In a refugee camp, it’s the waiting that will kill you.
The whole point of a refugee camp is that there are actual people trying to kill you.
But really, it’s the slow numbing death of hopelessness that does it. You have to imagine a room that’s just a cement cube—nothing beautiful in it. If you’re not careful, this is also what becomes of the parlor of your mind.” (He references the parlor of the mind a few times and I love this idea)
“DON’T KNOW HOW MY MOM was so unstoppable despite all that stuff happening. I dunno. Maybe it’s anticipation.
Hope.
The anticipation that the God who listens in love will one day speak justice.
The hope that some final fantasy will come to pass that will make everything sad untrue.
Unpainful.
That across rivers of sewage and blood will be a field of yellow flowers blooming. You can get lost there and still be unafraid. No one will chase you off of it. It’s
yours. A father who loves you planted it for you. A mother who loves you watered it. And maybe there are other people who are kind…”
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: War, Blood, and Animal death
jo845's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Abandonment
Minor: Animal death, Blood, and Racial slurs
emilydrojas's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, and Animal death
sarah984's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
It took me a while at the beginning to figure out how to read this book, but once I got into it, I couldn't stop reading. At first it feels like a lot of vignettes only connected in that they're about the same person, but gradually it all comes together. The author's "kid" voice is really well-done.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Religious bigotry, Blood, and Grief
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Racism, and Bullying
Minor: Torture, Confinement, Body shaming, Death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Pedophilia, War, and Drug use