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A review by kierscrivener
We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib
emotional
informative
3.5
Samra Habib chronicles her story from growing up in Pakistan and immigrating to Canada as a child to her arranged marriage at sixteen and finding her independence and identity in her twenties and thirties and reconnecting with her family and her faith.. Her project of Muslim queer community and celebrating voices that are not heard in the queer community and the Muslim community.
I think it is a combination of her journalist background and that she was very alienated from herself not allowing herself to feel emotions when she was younger. But I often felt like we were told what happened, skimming with only occasional dives into moments. Which left me informed but not highly immersed into her story which I would argue is the main separation between a memoir and a more journalistic nonfiction. Over all, I enjoyed it and I recommend it as a fuller picture of the history of the queer Muslim experience in Canada.
I think it is a combination of her journalist background and that she was very alienated from herself not allowing herself to feel emotions when she was younger. But I often felt like we were told what happened, skimming with only occasional dives into moments. Which left me informed but not highly immersed into her story which I would argue is the main separation between a memoir and a more journalistic nonfiction. Over all, I enjoyed it and I recommend it as a fuller picture of the history of the queer Muslim experience in Canada.