Reviews

Despite the beautiful graphics of this book, unfortunately it just didn't work for me.

I truly appreciate seeing the struggles Nayra faces during Ramadan. However, I just felt so mad about how every person close to her namely Rami and her family just invalidates her struggles and just advices her to ignore them.

At the end I still don't understand what Nayra did wrong. None of the people who did her wrong,: her family, her best friend Rami, and her bullies ever apologized. They were never held accountable for their mistakes and everything is just alright in the end. My girl Nayra deserves better.

coffeenoldbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional lighthearted fast-paced

3.5

🍉Pages-4-Palestine Readathon🍉

The second book I want to highlight is Nayra and the Djinn by Iasmin Omar Ata.

This read follows Nayra’s life during a Ramadan. Ramadan is the holiest of months for the Muslim community and is a way to connect to Allah and ones faith. I really loved how this story takes place during this time. I feel like the story touched on strengthening communities, and friendships as well as reaching out to others whom need help.

This comic goes through the struggle that Nayra had to go through at school for being “different” and showed some togetherness with another Muslim student Rami. As the bullying and Islamophobia becomes worse Nayra is at her end with it looking to transfer schools. She tries desperately to let her family know but they push it aside and tell her to try harder since her siblings did. Nayra finds some solace in an online forum for Muslims where she lurks until one night a strange thing happens and a Djinn reaches out to the human world. As time goes on the Djinn, Marjan, helps Nayra out of a depression and helps her form new friendships and patch up others where she was too scared to before. Marjan also helps her confront her parents on issues that have been going on.

This story touches on Muslim American identity, friendship, and being a young adult. This is a middle grade graphic novel and reads as such. There are parts that are not as fleshed out as I would like and I would’ve loved some more background on the Djinn and their connection to Nayra. I also would’ve loved some more backstory on Rami as well as the ending where Nayra confronts her family. Overall this was a super cute read and I loved the art and colour palette.

Content Warnings

kaiteayu's review against another edition

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5.0

This comic is amazing! It was entertaining, educational, and beautifully illustrated. There were some words in Arabic where I knew the meaning and the pronunciation, but others I didn’t, but I could understand the meaning from the context. The story is very intriguing and has many layers to everyday issues that Nayra experiences, whether at home or school. The struggles of being a young Muslim in America are made clear. They are also quite infuriating as it seems that no one (such as the teachers) actually does anything regarding the harassment and Islamophobia actions and words of other students. (Which touches on the issue of how American public schools lack the ability to take steps toward ensuring all students, particularly minorities, do not face bullying, prejudice, etc.). All the characters are fleshed out well, and the reader learns a good amount about each character. I understand there is some confusion in parts of the book and even the feeling that context is missing or that the ending was quickly wrapped up. However, I find the book light-hearted and cutesy while handling social issues well. I wish I had books such as this one when I was younger. I rate the book a 4.5/5 as I do slightly agree and wish it was more detailed in specific areas, such as the agreements between humans and Djinn. However, I think for those like myself who didn’t know what the meaning of Djinn was at the beginning of reading the book, this is a foot in the door to learning more about the folklore. It looks like this is the first book, so I look forward to the continuation which might elaborate more. I recommend this book to everyone as it is a fast read and a good one!

charliebnl's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious fast-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? Yes

4.25

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