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rm206 's review for:
I Can't Think Straight
by Shamim Sarif
Like most books that focus on queer women that have a film adaptation, I Can’t Think Straight made its first impression on me by way of its movie. In some ways, that impression – particularly since I read the book years after seeing the movie, so the memory really is just an impression – remains true. Much of the dialog and all but a few scenes are a one-to-one match between the movie and the book. Prose, however, provides greater context than the movie manages and is not stilted by shaky performances.
I Can’t Think Straight tells the story of Tala, a Jordanian whose well-to-do Christian family fled Palestine, and Leyla, a Muslim Indian who has grown up in England. Tala is in the midst of her fourth engagement; Leyla has little interest in dating but has been with her boyfriend for two months. Both are under pressure from their families to make these relationships work.
When the two meet, sparks fly – in that Tala’s abrasive questioning leaves Leyla confused and defensive. But beyond that, a friendship is quickly formed despite their differences, and while Tala would like to write this off as a close, intimate friendship, Leyla admits to herself that she’s falling for the other woman.
Almost as soon as Tala and Leyla come together, they are pulled apart by Tala’s family. Each must confront her own family and grow in her own way before they can repair the friendship that was broken.
In novel format, one gets a better sense of the characters and their motivations, and the pair’s progression from strangers to friends to lovers to near-strangers again. Tala’s family members, in particular, are given more depth, both as individuals and in their politics.
If you liked aspects of the movie but felt it came up short in some areas, you might get more out of reading the book.
I Can’t Think Straight tells the story of Tala, a Jordanian whose well-to-do Christian family fled Palestine, and Leyla, a Muslim Indian who has grown up in England. Tala is in the midst of her fourth engagement; Leyla has little interest in dating but has been with her boyfriend for two months. Both are under pressure from their families to make these relationships work.
When the two meet, sparks fly – in that Tala’s abrasive questioning leaves Leyla confused and defensive. But beyond that, a friendship is quickly formed despite their differences, and while Tala would like to write this off as a close, intimate friendship, Leyla admits to herself that she’s falling for the other woman.
Almost as soon as Tala and Leyla come together, they are pulled apart by Tala’s family. Each must confront her own family and grow in her own way before they can repair the friendship that was broken.
In novel format, one gets a better sense of the characters and their motivations, and the pair’s progression from strangers to friends to lovers to near-strangers again. Tala’s family members, in particular, are given more depth, both as individuals and in their politics.
If you liked aspects of the movie but felt it came up short in some areas, you might get more out of reading the book.