Not quite 'Ten' out of 10
You know those kind of books that are so predictable that you dread picking them back up because you can tell how they're going to end? That's why it took me so long to finish reading this book.
Jamilah Twofeek has not been acting like herself. As a Lebenese-Muslim girl born in Australia, she's going through a major identity crisis. Since half of her high school is filled with judgmental racists, she's been hiding her ethnicity by dying her hair blond and wearing blue contact lenses - and keeping her mouth shut whenever her classmates make fun of foreigners. And it works really well, since the big racist man on campus has taken a shine to her. But her uber-strict father won't let her go out after sunset since Jamie's a) a girl and b) the baby of the family. She can let her hair down at Arabic school, but her teacher Miss Sajda picks up on Jamie's frustration and wants her to open up. But Jamie finds a better way to vent by making an online friend who offers an open mind. As she tries to convince her dad to extend her curfew, comfort a school friend who feels abandoned, and dodge her snoopy uncle, Jamie learns that maybe standing out can be rewarding.
I wanted to like this book. It has a unique perspective and offers an opportunity to dig into cultural issues that I myself have not experienced firsthand. There was a lot of potential in this book. Sadly, it seems to have wasted a good deal of it. Instead of finding the conflict and the protagonist to be new and interesting, it all felt too familiar and therefore boring. Jamie isn't remarkable, which is fine - but she's not written remarkably, either. Most of the trouble I had concerned Abdel-Fattah's flat prose and her insistence with stuffing the book with subplots. Jamie has a couple crushes, a couple different friend, a popularity problem, constant fights with her priggish father - to say nothing of the trouble her activist sister gets into near the end. If the parts could have been brought together into a cohesive whole, there would be no problem. Instead, everything feels fragmented, which is not helped by the disjointed pacing.
Jamie never really clicked for me because she was ... kind of white bread. I simply never got to know her - only her problems. For example, she informs us that she plays the darabuka in her Arabic school band. Pretty fascinating, a girl drummer who plays an instrument from her culture. But we never know why she plays it. Does she have a good sense of timing and rhythm? Is she good at all? What does she feel like when she plays - either in a group or alone in her room? We never find out; the one time we see her playing, she uses the time to think about what kind of identity she wants to have.
And for a book that wants to promote the idea that a girl like Jamie is a complex person who transcends stereotypes, the antagonists in the book are very one-note. Apparently, Aussies be racist - and those racists are popular in school. Really, just about every character in the book has one or two distinctive traits. This isn't always bad - all I need to know about loner Timothy in order to like him is that he's a smart wiseacre. But it doesn't impress me very much, either.
Apart from its unique viewpoint - which isn't all that unique in the end - this book has nothing else distinguishing it from other middling YA books. Which is a shame, because I think reading about culturally diverse teens can be a wonderful and invigorating experience. Rating: 2.5 racist Australians out of 5.
I wanted to like this book. It has a unique perspective and offers an opportunity to dig into cultural issues that I myself have not experienced firsthand. There was a lot of potential in this book. Sadly, it seems to have wasted a good deal of it. Instead of finding the conflict and the protagonist to be new and interesting, it all felt too familiar and therefore boring. Jamie isn't remarkable, which is fine - but she's not written remarkably, either. Most of the trouble I had concerned Abdel-Fattah's flat prose and her insistence with stuffing the book with subplots. Jamie has a couple crushes, a couple different friend, a popularity problem, constant fights with her priggish father - to say nothing of the trouble her activist sister gets into near the end. If the parts could have been brought together into a cohesive whole, there would be no problem. Instead, everything feels fragmented, which is not helped by the disjointed pacing.
Jamie never really clicked for me because she was ... kind of white bread. I simply never got to know her - only her problems. For example, she informs us that she plays the darabuka in her Arabic school band. Pretty fascinating, a girl drummer who plays an instrument from her culture. But we never know why she plays it. Does she have a good sense of timing and rhythm? Is she good at all? What does she feel like when she plays - either in a group or alone in her room? We never find out; the one time we see her playing, she uses the time to think about what kind of identity she wants to have.
And for a book that wants to promote the idea that a girl like Jamie is a complex person who transcends stereotypes, the antagonists in the book are very one-note. Apparently, Aussies be racist - and those racists are popular in school. Really, just about every character in the book has one or two distinctive traits. This isn't always bad - all I need to know about loner Timothy in order to like him is that he's a smart wiseacre. But it doesn't impress me very much, either.
Apart from its unique viewpoint - which isn't all that unique in the end - this book has nothing else distinguishing it from other middling YA books. Which is a shame, because I think reading about culturally diverse teens can be a wonderful and invigorating experience. Rating: 2.5 racist Australians out of 5.
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