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2.69 AVERAGE
2.69 AVERAGE
2.5 stars. Also reviewed on my Youtube channel.
I was pretty excited when I found this on the shelf at my local library. I mean, a Muslim American teenage girl struggling to balance the two halves of her identity during Ramadan? Uh, yes. And in some ways, that was what I got. Almira is 15 years old and, after a monumental didn't-even-last-a-day failure the previous year, has decided to participate in fasting for Ramadan for the first time. Unable to eat while the sun is up, she finds herself struggling through school, her friends taunting her with chocolate, and a growing crush on the cute boy in her science class. She's also taken aback when a new girl - who's ALSO Muslim - starts at the school, and is rather more...abrasive...than expected.
Almira discovers a lot about herself and her family in the course of this book. In the early stages, she's totally grossed out and embarrassed by her mother's fitness obsession and love of gym clothes. By the end of the book, she thinks it's great that her mother's found something that makes her happy. She also realises that her grandfather's attitudes towards women (if they don't dress the way he thinks women should dress, he calls them "prostitutes", and will even yell it out the car window at women walking past) are far more toxic than she'd thought.
So yes, in a lot of ways it was great to see a teenaged Muslim America narrator and the struggles she goes through attempting to maintain her fast.
BUT.
I absolutely loathed the obsession with Almira's weight that we're subjected to throughout. She starts the book by telling us that she's chubby and eats terribly and that she could probably lose a few pounds. She then tells us that she's a SIZE EIGHT. Which, NO. Over the course of the book, basically all her friends and family members tell her how much better she looks now that she's losing weight. And she basically only decides to start exercising at the end of the book so that she can stay a particular size. She spends entire days obsessed with food, asking her friends what they're having for dinner or lunch, and then telling herself that it will all be worth it once she's thin.
I just...ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. Teenage girls have enough to worry about without being told that a size 8 is fat. And there are so few books with Muslim American narrators that we *really* don't need one where the main character essentially treats a religious event as a diet.
So yeah. There was stuff that I liked, and stuff that I hated. And at this point, that's balancing out to 2.5 stars.
I was pretty excited when I found this on the shelf at my local library. I mean, a Muslim American teenage girl struggling to balance the two halves of her identity during Ramadan? Uh, yes. And in some ways, that was what I got. Almira is 15 years old and, after a monumental didn't-even-last-a-day failure the previous year, has decided to participate in fasting for Ramadan for the first time. Unable to eat while the sun is up, she finds herself struggling through school, her friends taunting her with chocolate, and a growing crush on the cute boy in her science class. She's also taken aback when a new girl - who's ALSO Muslim - starts at the school, and is rather more...abrasive...than expected.
Almira discovers a lot about herself and her family in the course of this book. In the early stages, she's totally grossed out and embarrassed by her mother's fitness obsession and love of gym clothes. By the end of the book, she thinks it's great that her mother's found something that makes her happy. She also realises that her grandfather's attitudes towards women (if they don't dress the way he thinks women should dress, he calls them "prostitutes", and will even yell it out the car window at women walking past) are far more toxic than she'd thought.
So yes, in a lot of ways it was great to see a teenaged Muslim America narrator and the struggles she goes through attempting to maintain her fast.
BUT.
I absolutely loathed the obsession with Almira's weight that we're subjected to throughout. She starts the book by telling us that she's chubby and eats terribly and that she could probably lose a few pounds. She then tells us that she's a SIZE EIGHT. Which, NO. Over the course of the book, basically all her friends and family members tell her how much better she looks now that she's losing weight. And she basically only decides to start exercising at the end of the book so that she can stay a particular size. She spends entire days obsessed with food, asking her friends what they're having for dinner or lunch, and then telling herself that it will all be worth it once she's thin.
I just...ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. Teenage girls have enough to worry about without being told that a size 8 is fat. And there are so few books with Muslim American narrators that we *really* don't need one where the main character essentially treats a religious event as a diet.
So yeah. There was stuff that I liked, and stuff that I hated. And at this point, that's balancing out to 2.5 stars.
I 'picked this up' from the New Hampshire library online on a dreary, cold Hobart day which seemed perfect for some fluffy, non-thinking young adult reading, I was sorely disappointed.
I was excited to see some diversity, but annoyed by the constant obsession with weight (size 8 - according the internet, size 10-12 is average...?) and also the whiny. SO WHINY. I can empathise with some of the whiny because I can only imagine how HANGRY one would get fasting during Ramadan. It was excessive whining making none of the characters interesting.
Diversity good.
Book not good.
I was excited to see some diversity, but annoyed by the constant obsession with weight (size 8 - according the internet, size 10-12 is average...?) and also the whiny. SO WHINY. I can empathise with some of the whiny because I can only imagine how HANGRY one would get fasting during Ramadan. It was excessive whining making none of the characters interesting.
Diversity good.
Book not good.
Sadly, a very disappointing read in my opinion. The main character is 15, yet acts like she’s 2 years old... she’s always whining or obsessing over boys. At most I felt like she was a middle schooler! The book is not a good rep for the Islamic community, I have read far far better. Also note, who puts bestest in the title of a book
This is one of the few books that I have ever truly disliked.
The main character I found to be much too whiny, and she labeled herself a Muslim even though the majority of the things she did throughout the book were not so Islamic. I'll admit that some Muslims are like this, but the majority was greatly misrepresented. If you're looking for a good read about Muslims, check out [b:Does My Head Look Big In This|79876|Does My Head Look Big In This?|Randa Abdel-Fattah|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328866134s/79876.jpg|1532446] it's way better!
The main character I found to be much too whiny, and she labeled herself a Muslim even though the majority of the things she did throughout the book were not so Islamic. I'll admit that some Muslims are like this, but the majority was greatly misrepresented. If you're looking for a good read about Muslims, check out [b:Does My Head Look Big In This|79876|Does My Head Look Big In This?|Randa Abdel-Fattah|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328866134s/79876.jpg|1532446] it's way better!
Almira decides, for the first time, to observe Ramadan with her family. She is one of the few Muslims at her fancy school in a fancy area in Miami which makes things like school lunch complicated. Most of Almira's friends are Hispanic but she is in love with a blonde artsy type. Almira's family is very modern in many ways, but they forbid dating of any kind. In the process, Almira has difficulty with school, Peter the Blond Arty Type, her friends, her parents and her grandpa. A lot of her difficulties make her identifiable, but her self introspection was too self-aware to be believable for a teenager (or anyone really). Still sweet enough to be recommended to a young teen looking for a multi-ethnic novel.
A sweet, funny, and touching look at life as an Arab-American teen.