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bookishmillennial's review against another edition
I absolutely loved this memoir about reckoning with intersections of Lamya's identity (their queerness, relationship with and parallels to Islam and the Quran, her immigrant experience, being in graduate school/white academic spaces, being brave & vulnerable with friends & self-sabotaging, dating, choosing softer approaches to dialogue) and am so grateful for it.
I cried, I laughed, I raged, I wanted so badly to hug Lamya. What a gift this memoir was. My gratitude to Lamya for being brave & sharing with us - what an honor and privilege to witness part of Lamya's journey via this memoir.
Sharing some quotations that stood out to me below:
“I gather my resentment, my fury that there's nowhere in the world that's magically free of racism and Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia. I take that burning question and channel it toward new different questions: How can I fight injustices in this place where I have community, where I'm choosing to stay? How can I build a life here that feels, rooted in my principles, even if it will never be perfect?”
“And this is why my story has to remain untold: I have everything to lose. I could lose my family's love, I could lose my love for them.”
“There are other women like me in the Quran. Women who are uninterested in men, who are born wrong, living lives that are entirely out of their control.”
“Decades later, my mother will throw out a casual remark about how easy I was as a teenager and I'll be shocked anew that she never knew, that she never even tried to know.”
“And the truth is also that l love doing these things because I love these people. But in the quiet before Manal responds, I feel confronted anew with the flip side of this way of being with other people—a way that’s based in fear of people leaving, that prevents me from asking things of people in turn.”
“I’ve learned to reframe telling people as inviting in, instead of coming out - inviting into a place of trust, a place for building - and it feels like a waste of emotional energy to tell straight people whom I don’t expect to understand my queerness, don’t intend to count on for advice or support in this area. But what I’ve been noticing about people I haven’t invited into my queerness is that it introduces a barrier between us. What do I talk to these people about? How do I share feelings and intimacies without revealing this huge part of myself? Who am I without this queerness that now pervades my life, my politics, my everything?”
“...even after all of this, my saying the truth out loud is not enough to prove who I am to a world that doesn't believe me.”
Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, and Islamophobia
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, and Deportation
readandfindout's review against another edition
4.25
Themes: 4.5 stars
Perspective: 4.5 stars
Graphic: Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Self harm, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, and Classism
Minor: Emotional abuse, Colonisation, and Deportation
annamay1021's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Biphobia, Domestic abuse, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Islamophobia, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Racial slurs
noura's review
4.5
Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, and Islamophobia
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Racial slurs, Colonisation, and Deportation
abigaelf's review against another edition
4.5
Minor: Cursing, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Islamophobia, Outing, and Deportation
shaun_dh's review against another edition
5.0
It’s pretty amazing that I saw so much of myself in the author—me, a cis femme Biracial Black atheist witch dyke—especially in the final chapter. It feels like that chapter could have been written for me
This book is for anyone who has felt othered, anyone who is curious about religious interpretation, anyone who is interested in differing perspectives. Anyone with an open mind. Really, I think everyone needs to read this
Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infertility, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Dementia, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism
amina_writes_books's review against another edition
3.0
Moderate: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, and Classism
mfrisk's review against another edition
3.5
I think this book was incredibly impactful and really the main gripes I had with the book were focused on the structure of the book itself. At times more towards the first half of the book the switches between childhood and adulthood felt more jarring in terms of the flow of the story as well as the interweaving of stories from the Quran. While I saw the value in the stories being told and the reflection it made the book slower to get into initially but became more relevant as the book went on to better understand Lamya’s later adulthood experiences and their changing ways of navigating different spaces.
Graphic: Bullying, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, and Toxic friendship
torturedreadersdept's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Biphobia, Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Dysphoria, and Classism
Minor: Ableism, Confinement, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Transphobia, Violence, Police brutality, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Deportation
sknappy1's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Self harm and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, and Transphobia