Reviews

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

A beautiful novel-in-verse about a Sudanese-American teenager Nima. I highly recommend it.

Here are some lines that stood out to me, but keep in mind that the formatting is different on-page than me copying & pasting here, so naturally, it changes the impact of these words:

we never ask why our mothers had come here & could not let it go though i always beg for the same crumpled photograph stories of weddings that went on for weeks cafes crowded with poets gardens lush & humming with mosquitoes we whisper to each other if it’s so great there then why don’t we ever go back

in my silence i dress myself in yellow & imagine a garden thick with date palms a girl mouth open & fluent who knows where she is from

so even here among my so-called people i do not fit here where the hierarchy puts those who have successfully americanized at the top i’ve marked myself by caring about the old world & now i hover somewhere at the bottom of the pyramid (while our arabic teacher drones about ancient times & the little-known fact that our country has 255 pyramids remaining today)

ours is a culture that worships yesterday over tomorrow but i think we are all lucky to have left yesterday behind we are here now dissatisfied i press on wait, you actually like it here? & she faces me again a sadness hitched behind her eyes here i have lost nothing i could not afford to lose

living nowhere existing nowhere stuck watching between worlds watching you waste all the life you’ve been given all that love you’ve been given you have no idea what you have & have the nerve to wish it all away

do you actually understand how boring it is waiting to be made possible?

i am haunted by the memory of her scream the sound of someone in terrible pain a pain she didn’t deserve when all she ever tried to do was live

our broken history full of loss full of people & places once loved & now simply gone i thought i’d stolen one back to our side reclaimed one of our losses from history’s sharper teeth from time’s gaping mouth but i was wrong he was never meant to be ours my father he was always meant to be gone it was always bigger than anything my small tampering could change & my mother & i were always meant to belong to no one but each other

cw: Islamophobia, Racism, Bullying, Death of parent, Hate crime, Grief, Infidelity, Medical content, Car accident

stmagda's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

kiperoo's review against another edition

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5.0

Thanks to NetGalley, I got to read this early. I loved everything about it. The poetry is simply stunning--some of the imagery and turns of phrase will stop you dead. And the story itself is about the daughter of an immigrant in the US who feels lost--not fully at home here, but not familiar with the life her mother left behind either. The magical connection she discovers to the girl she might have been helps her come to understand all the love she didn't realize was right in front of her. Highly recommend!