Word Revel

Sadly, I have more gripes than praises. Almira is a straight-A student and her teachers agree that she is extremely intelligent. I didn’t see that. Sure, she was smarter than her best friend, Lisa, who couldn’t even remember(!) who wrote “The Diary of Anne Frank” which isn’t a work of fiction. Lisa chose it for a book report, and it seemed that she had already read it previously, so she must’ve been pretty dumb for someone in an honours class. This means that it didn’t take much for Almira to be smarter than Lisa. Despite her supposed intelligence, she was incredibly shallow. She spent the most part obsessing over Peter and worrying about Lisa chasing him too. Then there was Shakira, the new girl. Almira of all people should have known that there is more to someone than her clothes. After all, her own grandfather referred to most women wearing non-conservative clothing “prostitutes” because he thought wearing mini skirts was a sign of corrupt morality. Still, she dismissed Shakira immediately and didn’t even bother talking to her until circumstances led them to each other.

What bothered me the most was that I expected to read about Almira’s experience of Ramadan. Ramadan however is about more than not eating between sunrise and sundown. It is about strengthening faith and a spiritual exercise. For the most part, Almira was fixated on the abstinence from food. Understandable, seeing how this was the first time she seriously took part in fasting. Beyond that though, there was little mention of her own faith. I didn’t expect soul-searching at that point but I did think it would’ve been important to explore why she so badly wanted to take part in Ramadan. I got the sense that she stuck it out because she realized she could lose weight that way, and also for pride to prove her grandfather wrong because he believed she couldn’t do it.

In a way, the book didn’t live up to my expectations. I was disappointed because Ramadan was belittled through the eyes of the main character. Sure, she did not have a strict upbringing, even though it was stricter than that of her friends. Yet, there was no extensive Islamic influence in her life either to be representative of a Muslim growing up in America, trying to practice her faith while in a country that is exceedingly more liberal than her religion allows.

At the end of it I did not think that the question of how to be Muslim and American was answered.

Fuller review here.