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A review by dannafs
American Taliban by Pearl Abraham
3.0
This book starts off following John Jude Parish, the 18-year-old son of Barbara and Bill, hanging out with his surfer-girl friends in the Outer Banks (OBX) of Virginia. John is the product of an upper-class, loving upbringing, and is described as intelligent and well-adjusted. He has chosen to defer his acceptance to Brown University for one year in order to study different topics and really enjoy surfing and skateboarding. A skating injury throws a monkey wrench in his plans, and a series of events lands him studying Arabic in an exclusively Muslim school in Brooklyn, NY. John, who seems over-committed to everything he does, becomes so immersed in the Muslim culture that he decides to go to Pakistan to further his religious and educational progress. In Pakistan, he ends up training with the Taliban and is never heard from again. Instead, Abraham switches the novel's perspective to Barbara and Bill - distraught parents searching for their son. Abraham draws parallels to the real-life story of John Walker Lindh, implying that John Jude has followed a similar path.
I truly enjoyed the beginning of this book. I loved reading about John's rapture for surfing and his relationships with the Wahines, Katie, Jilly, and Sylvie. Abraham does an excellent job of describing how an intelligent teenager might get wrapped up in something bigger than himself - like a religion - and be unable to disentangle before going off the deep end. The book is intriguing and heartbreaking. I felt the first half of the book was better written than the second half. In the first few pages, I was struck by a number of quotes and descriptions, but was not impressed at all later on. The chapters are short and it is an easy read.
Favorite quotes:
"So he is committed to the daily minute, to living in the present in the present tense, to finding the extraordinary in ordinary time, in the here and now" (20).
One of my all-time favorite descriptions of sex: "So he awoke, and with long arms lifted and tucked her into his hips" (13).
I truly enjoyed the beginning of this book. I loved reading about John's rapture for surfing and his relationships with the Wahines, Katie, Jilly, and Sylvie. Abraham does an excellent job of describing how an intelligent teenager might get wrapped up in something bigger than himself - like a religion - and be unable to disentangle before going off the deep end. The book is intriguing and heartbreaking. I felt the first half of the book was better written than the second half. In the first few pages, I was struck by a number of quotes and descriptions, but was not impressed at all later on. The chapters are short and it is an easy read.
Favorite quotes:
"So he is committed to the daily minute, to living in the present in the present tense, to finding the extraordinary in ordinary time, in the here and now" (20).
One of my all-time favorite descriptions of sex: "So he awoke, and with long arms lifted and tucked her into his hips" (13).