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chan_bean's review against another edition
5.0
This book is really good.
The best meditation I've ever seen on how faith and reformation can and should be allowed to coincide.
Beautiful!
The best meditation I've ever seen on how faith and reformation can and should be allowed to coincide.
Beautiful!
mxunsmiley's review against another edition
4.0
Lamya H. you deserve so much more courtesy and respect! I loved reading the complexities of their relationships with the people they loved, tying them to their felt connections with figures in the Quran, and how they inspired them in various points of their life. I also have to say that I'm going to start using "situationship" to describe certain relationships with people... It's thoughtful and insightful, touching on various issues surrounding intimacy and personal safety.
I also think it's a rare case where the conflict between identities (both internally and externally) is treated realistically with so much nuance and acknowledgement that yes, it can get messy and sometimes compromise isn't possible, but there is still refuge and courage to be found in life.
I will say that at times it jumped around time periods too disparately. The organization was probably my least favorite thing about it.
I also think it's a rare case where the conflict between identities (both internally and externally) is treated realistically with so much nuance and acknowledgement that yes, it can get messy and sometimes compromise isn't possible, but there is still refuge and courage to be found in life.
I will say that at times it jumped around time periods too disparately. The organization was probably my least favorite thing about it.
flickdabeen's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
groovywitch's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
anna__b's review against another edition
2.5
This really didn't work for me, and I'm bummed. I think the concept of connecting the author's life experiences to these different stories from the Quran is really interesting and unique, and it is always thought-provoking to read the story of someone who's life has been very different from your own. But in execution, this memoir just didn't really come together for me. Even though the author was revealing some very personal moments, I still kind of felt like I was being held at arm's length. The narrative voice was really impersonal and dispassionate - the writing felt very academic, almost like reading a whole book in therapy speak. We were told what the narrator was feeling at different points, but I never actually felt any emotion coming through in the text. Additionally, the story jumped around a lot, especially in the first part, and some of the transitions felt really jarring and made it difficult to understand how we got from point A to B in the author's journey of accepting her queerness. A lot of details also did have to be omitted to preserve anonymity, which I totally understand and respect, but it definitely didn't help with that impersonal feeling.
Most of the parallels the author drew to the religious stories also didn't quite connect for me. I am not very familiar with Islam, but most of the parables in this book are also in the Old Testament of the Bible, so they were familiar to me as a kid who was raised in the church. I'm no longer religious, so I'll admit that I had trouble relating to the author's deep emotional connection to these stories and the desire to make them fit into her own identity, and maybe that's part of why it didn't do much for me. But for me, a lot of the parallels this book tried to draw felt very surface-level, and it seemed like the author had to really stretch the themes of the original stories a lot and fill in a lot of imagined details to make them relate to her life. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with adding your own interpretation to religious stories, but the way it was done in this memoir just was not particularly effective. I wish the author would've gone deeper into her interpretations of the stories, and maybe spent more time interrogating the more problematic elements rather than brushing them aside, like the Asiyah story or the finance laws that discriminate against women.
Most of the parallels the author drew to the religious stories also didn't quite connect for me. I am not very familiar with Islam, but most of the parables in this book are also in the Old Testament of the Bible, so they were familiar to me as a kid who was raised in the church. I'm no longer religious, so I'll admit that I had trouble relating to the author's deep emotional connection to these stories and the desire to make them fit into her own identity, and maybe that's part of why it didn't do much for me. But for me, a lot of the parallels this book tried to draw felt very surface-level, and it seemed like the author had to really stretch the themes of the original stories a lot and fill in a lot of imagined details to make them relate to her life. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with adding your own interpretation to religious stories, but the way it was done in this memoir just was not particularly effective. I wish the author would've gone deeper into her interpretations of the stories, and maybe spent more time interrogating the more problematic elements rather than brushing them aside, like the Asiyah story or the finance laws that discriminate against women.
lukewarm_ravens's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
I wanted to like this book but there was some major issues that made it hard to read. I felt like the author's reflections were often very surface level or non-existent, and were more focused on how/why others were wrong, instead of an honest look at their own actions. Despite a large portion of this book focusing on the author's relationship with the people they meet, none of the characters feel real or engaging. Many of them feel like paper dolls that the author is using to act out one-sided arguments. In fact, a vast majority of this book reads like a shower argument the author is having with an imaginary reader.
There is also little to engage with in term of conflict. The book is incredibly formulaic, which works when the author is a child, but really starts to drag after the author becomes an adult and no further complexity is introduced. As I mentioned before, the author seems uninterested in examining their own actions or beliefs. The author is never wrong, they always have the right comeback or do the right thing in the end, and they are usually very condescending to other people, which they are never called out on or come to terms with. They also often have little consideration for other peoples' worldview or experiences, which can feel tone-deaf and ignorant.
Additionally, I felt like naming this book after Stone Butch Blues does this book a disservice. SBB is leftist discourse, this memoir feels like a liberal column in the New York Times. Additionally, based on how the author uses the word "butch," it's glaringly obvious that the author has never read SBB, and seems blind to many of the financial and systemic issues that queer people other than themselves face. It is wrong to say that the author does not suffer. They do, frequently. However, it's also true that by the end of the book, the author is also friends with mostly middle and upper class friends who have spared them from many of the experiences described in SBB. Once again, most of this book feels tone deaf because of the author's naivety.
This book isn't bad, but it feels like it needed another draft, or a just better editor. Many of these problems are typical of a first-time author.
Regardless, the spiritual side of this book is great and very intriguing. I am not Muslim, but I read it in a group with my friends who are. The one-star reviewers dooming and glooming because the author dared to call Maryam a dyke are dumb. That was one of the best parts.
I recommend this book for some light reading or to expand your worldview. The lack of nuance is disappointing, but not detrimental. I'm giving it 3 stars out of 5 for a reason.