Reviews tagging 'Islamophobia'

Gorzki smak jej wielkiej radości by Tahereh Mafi

68 reviews

_m0's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Maybe I am out of the angsty YA demographic to really appreciate the interpersonal drama, but it seemed like she was just fighting with every single other character all the time with no development or cohesion into a bigger picture, and I didn't understand it. Especially Zahra, who seemed like a horrible "friend." It felt like a lot of emotional jumping around between all these threads of angst and sitting in the rain, with no real resolution on any of it (her mother's mental health and self-harm, her father's health and her hatred of him, her quarrel with her sister, her fight with Zahra, her feelings for Ali, her new friendship with Noah [who seemed like the only sane one in the book, and the only one I wanted to actually spend time getting to know])... My subjective enjoyment rating: 2/5 stars.

Content Warnings

dramagirl2003's review against another edition

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challenging emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

i still don’t know entirely what to make of this book, but it was certainly enlightening

thoughts while reading

p33: well i thought that but wasn’t 100% sure

p51: look i know it’s a bit weird when your friend is crushing on your sibling, but that is an overkill reaction

p71: maybe shadi was conducting herself with more maturity than shayda and that’s why the doctor assumed she was the oldest

p190: yeah you might as well have

p229: ali better not still be in zahra’s bathroom

quotes

p33:

There's no such thing as an Islamic terrorist.
It was morally impossible—philosophically impossible—to be Muslim and a terrorist at the same time. There was nothing in Islam that condoned the taking of innocent lives.
And yet there it was, every day, every day, the conflation:
Muslim terrorist. Islamic terrorist.

p136:

I had a thousand human needs that needed tending to and I felt paralyzed by the weight of those needs…
…worrying that I perhaps I wasn't eating enough or sleeping enough…
…my heart and mind were so full these days they were stretching at the seams…

p190:

I realized, as I cried myself to sleep that night, that I might've hurt him less had I simply driven a stake through his heart.

Content Warnings

kokoberry's review

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emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

guessgreenleaf's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

hmmitsvenus's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Read for the 2024 Asian Readathon. Prompt 1: Read a book written by an Asian author.

An Emotion of Great Delight was a wonderful exploration into the life of one Muslim teen living in a post-9/11 world, while navigating complicated family relationships, friendships, society and love.

I loved the writing in this book. It was so beautiful and atmospheric, and the writing flowed really well, so I breezed through this book super easily and I really understood Shadi's feelings. I especially loved the descriptions of Shadi and her family's grief and sadness; sad and gut-wrenching, just my favourite. I also really loved the explorations into the topics of complicated family relationships and religion in this book. It was interesting. And the romance! Super cute. I'm not normally a huge fan of romance, but I ate this one up.

In all honesty, though, I did think that this book was too short. Despite its rather limited length, this book tries to tackle a lot of very complicated topics, which I think could have been done better if only this book was a little bit longer and we'd gone into more detail. The ending was also incredibly abrupt and open-ended; there was really no clear resolution.

Even so, I think this book still deserves four stars simply because of how much I enjoyed it. I really loved the writing. I had fun reading this book; plain and simple.

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brookey8888's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I enjoyed this, but I think that to much was happening and none of it get wrapped up or flushed out. I appreciate the topics discussed in this, all of them being hard and difficult conversations, but half of them weren’t even concluded. This also just felt off to me? I’m not Muslim so I can’t speak on the
Representation And the some of the topics discussed, but it just didn’t seem All that well done to me. I know the author is Muslim so maybe that’s her experience, but read reviews from Muslim readers.

Content Warnings

whomever_0's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.5

I didn't like how abrupt the ending felt. It really felt like nothing was really resolved.

Content Warnings

sbbailey's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

i have a lot of thoughts about this book, on the one hand it’s half baked until about 75% but then it still doesn’t make complete sense. on the other hand i see what the author was trying to do here, it was very poetic, in a way. but some authors aren’t equipped to write true poetic work. i get what mafi was trying to do with this book. it didn’t make sense until the end because it wasn’t supposed to the main characters thoughts were so jumbled because of GREIF, mafi just didn’t assemble it correctly. it had great potential, but the potential wasn’t met. she wrote this book with the write concept for the times, but the writing just doesn’t do it justice.

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aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

4.0

As a former Muslim who grew up during 9/11 and post 9/11, this book def hit some feelings. Def look up content/trigger warnings tho. There is at least brief mentions of a few different things.
Although I didn't love the romance aspect and would've loved to see more of Noah, I thoroughly enjoyed this book on family, grief, and struggles of being Muslim in a country that thinks you are the personification of pure evil. I was a little confused at the beginning with the switching of time a few times throughout the book tho.

Content Warnings

wrinnola's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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