And the faith!!!! I teared up quite a few times. It was so heartwarming to see the elements of Islam being accurately represented. I didn't realise how much I needed to see that till this book showed me the impact is actually does have. To see yourself in a book. My lap had been full. I’d had my Marvels and Oddities journal, a pen, my phone, headphones, and the food I’d bought right before boarding—a saran-wrapped breakfast sandwich and coffee. I had to gather these and, while clutching them to me, slide out. I didn't have to open my mouth or do anything for people to judge me. I just had to be born into a Muslim family and grow up to want to become a visible member of my community by wrapping a cloth on my head. Together, Zeynab and Adam bring out the absolute best in each other, even if they're not always in sync. They have so much chemistry in this book--both as two friends who have a lot of respect for each other--and two people who are undeniably falling for each other. There is one scene where their differences spell disaster, and it's so brilliantly crafted. And so human and so honest. We’ve been in the air just under two hours, and this woman has made me get up from my seat four times already. I’ve been writing in you, Marvels and Oddities journal, on and off since the plane took off, and she won’t stop peering at my words.

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). Yesterday I took the thin pieces of grooved balsa wood and fit them together in a grid pattern inside the box I’d already made. As the square compartments revealed themselves, smooth and flush without any screws or nails, I thought about touch. A thirteenth-century drawing of a tree caught his gaze. It wasn’t particularly striking or artistic. He didn’t know why this tree caused him to stride forward as if magnetized. (When he thinks about it now, his guess is thus: Trees were kind of missing in the landscape he found himself in at the time, and so he was hungry for them.)Love from A to Z is a quietly powerful story. It has something like tears and something like laughter and something that isn’t either, something as deep and relentless and annihilating as oceans. It’s a masterful, unsparing exploration of the distorting weight of prejudice, discrimination, racism and islamophobia, and a remarkably lifelike portrait of what it’s like to be Muslim today. 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.

ON THE MORNING OF SATURDAY, March 14, fourteen-year-old Adam Chen went to the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha. Yesterday, in social science, he rubbed his hands together before passing out his carefully chosen handout: The writing is absolutely gorgeous. I knew I loved Ali’s writing in Saints and Misfits, but she just blows it out of the water with her sophomore novel. She has this way with words where she knows just the exact ones to use to make the reader feel whatever emotion the character is feeling without ever being told that that’s how we should feel, it just…happens, and I found myself so invested in Adam and Zayneb’s emotions and personal stakes and journeys that I couldn’t help but root for their growth, not only separately but also together. But this is not a reward, you understand? Dad crossed his arms. You’ll have to do whatever Auntie Natasha says. She’s still working, you know. She’s not going to appreciate you giving her problems. HIGHLIGHT OF THE FREAKING BOOK:that epilogue. CUTEST EPILOGUE FDLKJAFDLASKJ I WASN'T READY FOR THATSo to really freak her out, here, journal, have some Arabic words, written nice and big. إن شاء الله MARVEL: AIR Apart from the fact that somewhere in the middle the story was just dragging without a seemingly good reason, I actually enjoyed it.

The reality: raise my hand, challenge his BS, get my words twisted, sulk, and, to finish off, pen my anger on a piece of paper.

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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. For a long time, I thought my decision to take off my hijab was just that—I wanted to, so I did it. But the truth, I think, is that I didn’t want to be made to feel the way I felt in that room ever again: confused and hurt and lonely and so hideously helpless. Laughing along when I was the butt of the joke because I didn’t know what else to do. Even as young as I was, I knew—acutely and with grief—that life had enough hard edges without someone seeing the scarf around my head and deciding I was less than they were. I was a queer brown Muslim immigrant—I didn’t want to give the world more reasons to disdain me. 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. The writing was good, It was not magical or anything special. I was bothered by the HP references that are now apart of almost every YA contemporary. I feel authors use it to sound cool and relatable but seeing it time after time became a pet peeve for me, where is the creativity people?! I also appreciated how through her characters main and side alike, the author showed so many different Muslim experiences. From Zayneb who was born and raised Muslim, to Adam who converted at eleven, including her mom who converted when she got married and his dad when he was grieving his own wife. And I love how all the things that make them the Muslim people they are were thrown so casually, as it should be.