Scan barcode
silvae's review
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, and Racism
Moderate: Transphobia, Religious bigotry, and Homophobia
jpitts's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
5.0
This was an incredibly well-crafted, hard-hitting memoir. I was super impressed by the parallels the author drew between her own life and the Quran and how well everything flowed and came together. It had me thinking and feeling a lot.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Islamophobia, Homophobia, Biphobia, Lesbophobia, and Xenophobia
howell_reads's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Beautiful, beautiful book.
Angry, tender, funny, and thoughtful all at once.
Angry, tender, funny, and thoughtful all at once.
Content Warnings
Minor: Domestic abuse, Self harm, Racism, and Homophobia
fareehareads's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
This is the first queer Muslim memoir I've ever read and I'll admit, I was apprehensive going in. I wasn't sure if I was going to relate & then I wondered why I felt the need to be seen in the pages of someone else's stories. All thoughts aside, I dug into the book and finished it in 2 days. I now need everyone around me to read this book. A younger me probably needed a story like this and the idea that young queer Muslims will find this is a comfort. This book clearly spells out something I did not give myself the permission to do on my own by relating the lives of the prophets and the women in the Quran to our own. We are often taught to live as the pious did and attempt to be better each day to please Allah. This book took that and laid out point by point how she tried to do that in her own life. These stories we are told to memorize, but never analyze much further than a close reading were taken apart and put together again to fit into Lamya's story and it was both brilliant and shocking. I didnt know I could still be shocked like this by a book, but here I am, gobsmacked. The comparisons in this book are done artfully. The exploration of a young South Asian navigating Arab superiority in an Arab country & the truths of white supremacy in America was brutal, the systemic racism barring her from peace in a world trained to look at her immigrant status as a definitive way to "other" her was powerful. Her decades long struggle to find community within queer and Muslim spaces was really relatable. I've never met this person but I see her so well and her life echoes so many of my experiences that I found myself praying for this stranger more than once (she'll probably remain in my duas for a long time) I appreciate so much that this book was about her journey with Islam as much as it was about her queer journey. I hope a lot of young queer people whose faith journey is just as important to them as their exploration of identity up this book & hear her story. I'm certainly glad I did.
Thank you to Penguin Random House for an arc of this title.
Thank you to Penguin Random House for an arc of this title.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Islamophobia, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Domestic abuse
More...