Reviews

This just wasn't quite a 4* read for me. It was a novel where I thought the writer took on a bit too much and I wonder whether more was originally written and then edited out. I would have liked to have heard more about what happened to Nada, particularly as her absence took up such a large part of the novel. From what I can recall from Afaf's perspective, life only got difficult after Nada disappeared.

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dark relaxing tense

4.5

Thought-provoking, enlightening, un-putdownable

This was an insanely well crafted book that deserves to be read widely. In The Beauty of You Face we meet a Palestinian-American woman who is trying to fight her place in a country that tells her she does not belong. It opens with a shooter visiting the school she is the principal of and opening fire.

Afaf Rahman is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants living in Chicago. The book goes between her childhood/teenage years and the present, which her at school with the shooter. Afaf grew up in a home with her older sister, brother and parents, at a young age, her older sister went missing and was never found. That tragic incident changed the dynamics of their family forever. Afaf watches her family fall apart, sees her dad become a devout Muslim and decides to follow in his footsteps. This divides the family as it is seen as she taking her father’s side and her brother taking her mother’s side.

In the present Afaf is negotiating with a shooter who opened fire at the children at her school. She comes face to face with him and his hatred and what happens next, will change you.

This is an exceptional novel that deserves to be read. This book explores grief, identity, belonging, community, forgiveness and love. Truly a beautiful novel that remains timely.