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50books_pocTwo books, both of which I read yesterday in an orgy of self indulgence. My package from amazon arrived in the morning, and I then proceeded to hog the sofa until the late evening. I'm sure there were things I was meant to be doing...
Anyway, on with the reviews!
'Does My Head Look Big In This?' by Randa Abdel-Fattah
This is a fantastic novel by someone who really badly needs a good editor! It's a great story; Amal Mohamed Nasrullah Abdel-Hakim is a Palestinian-Australian Muslim teenager who decides that she wants to go 'full time', and wear the veil any time she is in the presence of males who aren't in her immediate family. The impact of her decision upon her family, her friends, her life at school and those around her is the subject of the novel, along with all the normal woes of growing up - bullies, boys and getting through high school.
It's a wonderful book. One of the things I realized after reading that I loved about it was that Amal is not the sole Muslim protagonist of the book, in the way that I think she might have been in a White authored novel. She isn't left to be the only representative of Islam to a White audience. Instead the book gives us a plethora of interesting, detailed, strong Muslim characters, covering this huge spectrum of different experiences. Amal's parents, who are Palestinian Arabs, and who's parents worry about whether it's a good idea for her to wear the veil, and insist she goes to a predominantly White private school because they really want her to have the best education possible are Muslims. Her friend Leila, who wears the veil full time, and who's Turkish born mother is trying to push her towards an arranged marriage at 16 is Muslim. Her friend Yasmeena, and her mother who is a White British convert who covers her hair with a beanie instead of a headscarf, are both Muslims. Islam here isn't all about race - White British converts can face just as many problems from the outside world as Palestinian Muslim born Muslims - but equally the connection between Islamophobia and racism is there and on display for all to see.
Having said all that, the Muslims in this book are all comfortable middle class Muslims. The teenage girls in this novel are all bright, confident middle class kids, and whilst they may struggle with their faith, none of them need to worry about money, and all of them talk about going to university and the professions they expect to go into. However, considering how few novels there are which deal with the lives of Muslims teenagers anyway, I think it would be churlish to bitch that the writer hasn't been quite diverse enough. She's done a pretty good job.
The only area in which I feel she hasn't done a good job is in terms of picking up on factual errors. This should be a small thing. It should be something a good editor could pick up on, but this hasn't happened and as a result you end up with one character going from having black hair and green eyes in the paragraph she is introduced to having blonde hair and blue eyes two pages later. The book is very explicitly set in 2002, but the mother of one of the 16 year old characters talks about being a student in the 1960s, which makes her quite old to be giving birth for the first time in 1986, by my reckoning. These are minor things, but they are jarring things.
Minor twitches aside - it's a really good book. Very much recommended.
'Hostage to Pleasure' by Nalini Singh
Another of the Nalini Singh Psy/Changeling paranormal romance series. It's actually the last I'll be reviewing for a bit as the next one isn't due out for a while.
This one is the story of Dorian, another of the Dark River Sentinels, but a much more interesting one, in my opinion, than either Vaughn or Clay. And his heroine is another Psy, but a much tougher case than Faith. I view this novel as a welcome return to form for Ms Singh.
First of all, the tension between the characters felt much more real, and the power balance in the relationship was a very interesting one. The early antagonism was much stronger, and the chemistry between them much more volatile and uncertain as a result.
Perhaps because Dorian's reasons for being fairly broken (his sister was killed by a Psy serial killer) have been built up throughout the previous books they felt much more real than any of the angsty back stories of Nalini Singh's previous heroes, and whilst it might be corny, I really liked the good twin/evil twin subplot. In general, Nalini Singh was much more confident with her world uber-plot in this book, and let it develop a fair chunk, making me very happy.
As ever, the problems facing the hero and heroine were all tied up slightly too easily in the last few chapters, although I have hopes that the Dark River leopards may have just given themselves a ticking time bomb in the form of Amara, the 'evil twin' of the heroine who they think they may have redeemed for the moment.
There were also a few guest appearances from some of the other characters from books past, and it appears that Tally and Clay are far better as an established couple. They make sense when read like that. Or maybe I just only find them interesting in small doses.
So, two reviews from me today. I'll now pause for a bit, as the next two books in my reading pile are both White authored (I couldn't resist a Russian vampire novel), but hopefully will return soon when my next Octavia Butler novel arrives.
Finally, does anyone use BookMooch or anything similar? I use BookMooch, and do tend to add a fair few books that I've read for this challenge on there.
Anyway, on with the reviews!
'Does My Head Look Big In This?' by Randa Abdel-Fattah
This is a fantastic novel by someone who really badly needs a good editor! It's a great story; Amal Mohamed Nasrullah Abdel-Hakim is a Palestinian-Australian Muslim teenager who decides that she wants to go 'full time', and wear the veil any time she is in the presence of males who aren't in her immediate family. The impact of her decision upon her family, her friends, her life at school and those around her is the subject of the novel, along with all the normal woes of growing up - bullies, boys and getting through high school.
It's a wonderful book. One of the things I realized after reading that I loved about it was that Amal is not the sole Muslim protagonist of the book, in the way that I think she might have been in a White authored novel. She isn't left to be the only representative of Islam to a White audience. Instead the book gives us a plethora of interesting, detailed, strong Muslim characters, covering this huge spectrum of different experiences. Amal's parents, who are Palestinian Arabs, and who's parents worry about whether it's a good idea for her to wear the veil, and insist she goes to a predominantly White private school because they really want her to have the best education possible are Muslims. Her friend Leila, who wears the veil full time, and who's Turkish born mother is trying to push her towards an arranged marriage at 16 is Muslim. Her friend Yasmeena, and her mother who is a White British convert who covers her hair with a beanie instead of a headscarf, are both Muslims. Islam here isn't all about race - White British converts can face just as many problems from the outside world as Palestinian Muslim born Muslims - but equally the connection between Islamophobia and racism is there and on display for all to see.
Having said all that, the Muslims in this book are all comfortable middle class Muslims. The teenage girls in this novel are all bright, confident middle class kids, and whilst they may struggle with their faith, none of them need to worry about money, and all of them talk about going to university and the professions they expect to go into. However, considering how few novels there are which deal with the lives of Muslims teenagers anyway, I think it would be churlish to bitch that the writer hasn't been quite diverse enough. She's done a pretty good job.
The only area in which I feel she hasn't done a good job is in terms of picking up on factual errors. This should be a small thing. It should be something a good editor could pick up on, but this hasn't happened and as a result you end up with one character going from having black hair and green eyes in the paragraph she is introduced to having blonde hair and blue eyes two pages later. The book is very explicitly set in 2002, but the mother of one of the 16 year old characters talks about being a student in the 1960s, which makes her quite old to be giving birth for the first time in 1986, by my reckoning. These are minor things, but they are jarring things.
Minor twitches aside - it's a really good book. Very much recommended.
'Hostage to Pleasure' by Nalini Singh
Another of the Nalini Singh Psy/Changeling paranormal romance series. It's actually the last I'll be reviewing for a bit as the next one isn't due out for a while.
This one is the story of Dorian, another of the Dark River Sentinels, but a much more interesting one, in my opinion, than either Vaughn or Clay. And his heroine is another Psy, but a much tougher case than Faith. I view this novel as a welcome return to form for Ms Singh.
First of all, the tension between the characters felt much more real, and the power balance in the relationship was a very interesting one. The early antagonism was much stronger, and the chemistry between them much more volatile and uncertain as a result.
Perhaps because Dorian's reasons for being fairly broken (his sister was killed by a Psy serial killer) have been built up throughout the previous books they felt much more real than any of the angsty back stories of Nalini Singh's previous heroes, and whilst it might be corny, I really liked the good twin/evil twin subplot. In general, Nalini Singh was much more confident with her world uber-plot in this book, and let it develop a fair chunk, making me very happy.
As ever, the problems facing the hero and heroine were all tied up slightly too easily in the last few chapters, although I have hopes that the Dark River leopards may have just given themselves a ticking time bomb in the form of Amara, the 'evil twin' of the heroine who they think they may have redeemed for the moment.
There were also a few guest appearances from some of the other characters from books past, and it appears that Tally and Clay are far better as an established couple. They make sense when read like that. Or maybe I just only find them interesting in small doses.
So, two reviews from me today. I'll now pause for a bit, as the next two books in my reading pile are both White authored (I couldn't resist a Russian vampire novel), but hopefully will return soon when my next Octavia Butler novel arrives.
Finally, does anyone use BookMooch or anything similar? I use BookMooch, and do tend to add a fair few books that I've read for this challenge on there.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 10:33 am (UTC)But yes, overall worth any irritating errors :)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 10:40 am (UTC)I guess maybe if the character came from a particular type of English family which didn't cook curry and had been raised on a very bland diet it might make sense - no all English people eat curry - but that would be more of a comment on 'what it is like to be someone who always ate bland food and married a Pakistani' as opposed to 'a culture clash that would be very likely to happen in an English/Pakistani' marriage. I also suspect that that character was based on someone the writer knew, who was from a different generation - she's the character who was talking about being a student in the 1960s. I think an English girl being raised in the 1950s/1960s would be less likely to eat a lot of curry, although when I googled this to check out that I was right about this I found out that Mrs Beeton had curry recipes in her 19th century cook books, which rather threw me!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-11 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 04:35 pm (UTC)Friended back!
BTW, I think I stole the Ordinary Princess icon from somewhere. It isn't original. But she was one of my childhood heroines.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-25 10:25 am (UTC)Oh good, that wasn't just me. I thought Simone had had dark hair, but when she was mentioned as blonde, I was too lazy to go back and look, and thought I must have been remembering another character.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-25 11:01 am (UTC)