Love from A to Z

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I tilted my head and blinked at her sweater-set self. “Okay.” “Shit. Bitch.” She pretended it was because she couldn’t find her seat-belt slot. “Okay,” I said again, popping headphones on and scrolling on my phone to find the right selection. I turned up the volume and drew the left earphone away from my ear a bit as if adjusting it. A bit of Arabic, a traveling dua, filled the space between Hateful Woman and me. She stared. I smiled. • • • *I know, I know. I hate hateful people was so ironic. But I was born this way. Angry. When my siblings and I were young, my parents had this thing where they liked to sum each of us three kids up by the way we had entered the world. “Sadia had an actual smile on her face. Such a happy baby! Mansoor was calm, serene. And our youngest, Zayneb? She screamed nonstop for hours. A ball of anger!” Dad/Mom would say, laughing when they got to the punch line: me. When I was way younger, I’d get angry at this, their one-dimensional descriptions of us, their reducing us to these simple caricatures, their using me as a punch line. My face would redden, and I’d leave the room, puffing. They’d follow, trying to douse me with excuses for their thoughtlessness. After a while they learned to follow up the punch line with descriptions of my positive qualities. “But Zayneb is the most generous of our kids! Did you know she’s been sponsoring an orphan abroad with her allowance since she was six? He’s two years older than her, and she’s been taking care of him!” They’d beam at preteen me, at my newly developed guarded expression. Then, two years ago, when Mom and Dad had stopped this rudeness, I began not to care that they’d called me an angry baby. Because by then I’d discovered this about myself: I get angry for the right reasons. So I embraced my anger. I was the angry one. This is a beautiful, complex, and important book. I hope that all libraries will get this on their shelves and on display. A wonderful story that centers the Muslim experience and shows the power of anger, peace, and connection. What riles me is that people think Islamophobia is these little or big acts of violence. Someone getting their hijab ripped off, someone’s business getting vandalized, someone getting hurt or, yes, even killed. But I need to mention that it was only a small thing I didn’t like, for the most part, it was good (although a bit cheesy at the end). What I love so much about this book is how hopeful it is. Zayneb and Adam are both battling adverse circumstances throughout the book–Adam with his MS and Zayneb with the cause and effect of the the blatant racism she’s had to put up with at home and even in Doha. These circumstances often throw them off balance, and it is only by connecting with the other person that they begin to get a different perspective and also grow stronger. Adam learns that the prognosis of his MS doesn’t have to be as bleak as he once thought, and Zayneb learns that she doesn’t have to be ashamed of her anger and passion to fight injustice and racism.

But with this news, I’d potentially be getting to Doha on Thursday, when everyone else at school had a week to go before break! From William C. Morris Award Finalist S.K. Ali comes an unforgettable romance that is part The Sun Is Also a Star mixed with Anna and the French Kiss , following two Muslim teens who meet during a spring break trip. I promise, Dad. I let the two halves of the suitcase fall open and looked up just as Mom came up behind him. Her face was sad, so I smiled to prove I’d gotten over being angry at her. I won’t bother Auntie Nandy. I’ll be quiet and compliant. The only reason we’ve decided to give Miss Malik a week’s suspension instead—which will go into her records, by the way—is due to her exemplary academic record over the years. I’ll see this as a terrible, terrible decision she’s made. Mr. Fencer agrees with me on this. Her voice hardened again. But give me one more thing to make me reconsider, Miss Malik, and we may be seeing your college future at stake. I will not hesitate to make that so.tw: racism, islamophobia, xenophobia, death of a loved one (in the past), mentions of rape/honour killings, discussions of victims of war (drone killings), cultural appropriation, chronic illness (multiple sclerosis). Adam and Zayneb fall in love but share a value regarding dating: no kissing, touching, or sexting. Characters kiss in the epilogue.

I couldn’t stop myself from jumping up. I went to stand in front of them, my arms open slightly, a hug cue. Zayneb is an 18-year-old hijabi from Indiana—and she was just suspended for standing up to her Islamophobic teacher. It’s a good thing my roommate, Jarred, is practically never here. I mean it’s a good thing his girlfriend has her own place. The honesty the characters show in their entries allows for a full portrait of the teens, including their more complex, less idealistic traits. Hearing the differing accounts of their romantic interactions – including the details they focus on – lends a sense of intimacy to the book, show casing Ali’s comfort with the epistolary form. On the other hand, we have Adam, a biracial white/Chinese boy who’s so soft and gentle and caring, and who’s strength is more quiet, it works behind the scenes and shows in the way he is with his sister, his friends, and the way he’s been such a pillar for his family through all their hardships. He’s wildly optimistic and likes to see the good in things while still having this sadness to him that was ingrained in him by losing his mom, seeing his dad grieve and then finding out that he, himself, has the disease that killed his mom and having to come to term with it. I cannot speak for the representation of Multiple Sclerosis in this book but as the author’s note says, and, Adam’s manifestation of MS is just one of so many.

The next day, after returning from the history fair (and taking a nap), she began a journal and kept it going for the next two years, recording the wonders and thorns in the garden of her life. the only issue i had with the book was that the romance was a liiiittle too fast to start with. they were doing the mental 'it's better we dont get involved with each other, i'll just ignore them' just a couple meetings in diverse teen fiction (hijabi teen from Indiana meets Canadian Muslim mystery boy on flight to Doha, Qatar) Zayneb is jaded beyond her years because of the discrimination she faces, she’s also angry at said discriminations and refuses to hide it, she’s very vocal about everything that’s wrong with the world and feels the pain, not only hers but also that of every injustice, very deeply and wants to DO something about it. She is strong, confident and so so open about her feelings and that was very refreshing to read. She was also unapologetic and very sure in her Muslim-ness, and nothing could sway her from that, not even the world’s hatred. I was angry, sad, and happy for her all at once. Zayneb is Trini-Pakistani (her Trini side being of West Indian descent) and through her Pakistani side, Ali was able to broach the topic of the victims to the wars that are raging in West Asia (mainly Pakistan for…obvious reasons) as we speak, without erasing the US’ role in all those lost lives, and destroyed lands. And how even as a diaspora kid, Zayneb was still grieving for her people. And this is an element I didn’t expect to find in the story.

Yeah, I know, not the lightest topics on the planet, but they are real. And this story just shows how are they applied. Zayneb is a Muslim girl of Pakistani and Caribbean descent. After going head to head with her extremely Islamophobic social studies teacher, she is sent to Qatar to visit her aunt to cool down. On the plane ride over, she is seated next to an Islamophobic woman, whose loud protest at being seated next to Zayneb is rewarded by a move to first class. It isn't all bad, though - she has an empty seat to herself, now, and a cute boy on the plane smiles at her. I can’t prove anything about your teacher. Every time Dad and I offered to talk to him before, you said no. With the car stopped where the entrance of the school parking lot met the road, she glanced at me, mouth trembling slightly. Can’t you just graduate in peace? Reading this book, a few things came home to me—things I had always known but that had to been buried under the days of my life. It was as if a clawed hand had sunk its talons into my mind, cutting through memories, letting emotion bleed. One memory, in particular, suddenly afflicted me afresh as poignantly as if it happened minutes before.

I so appreciate what S.K. Ali has done. I know I'll be supporting her books from now on and I hope things change for the better in the publishing world as a whole and that our narratives do not become one-sided. Okay, I said again, popping headphones on and scrolling on my phone to find the right selection. I turned up the volume and drew the left earphone away from my ear a bit as if adjusting it. Fencer jumped off the desk and awarded us with his you-got-it stance: hands on his corduroy hips, legs apart, face beaming. Yes, or, to put it more precisely, you can say that it looks like the majority of those countries follow Islam. Anything else? Zee-naab? Which made him more excited. And caused him to dial up his antics. It’s like, when I walk into his class, I can practically see his glasses train their crosshairs on my hijab.