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A review by hmmitsvenus
An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh Mafi
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Islamophobia