Amal Mohamed Abdel-Hakim is a sixteen year-old Australian-Palestinian-Muslim girl living in Melbourne. Amal is Muslim and at the start of the novel, she makes the decision to start wearing the hijab “full-time”. Luckily, her friends treat her same as always. Amal is in Year 11. She finds herself constantly stressed as a result of schoolwork and helping her friends with their problems.
Throughout the book, Amal falls in love with Adam. He tries to kiss her at his birthday party but she follows her religion and heart and stops him. Amal is generally a friendly person but her hot temper and her defensive tone when someone mentions her religion lead her to have several small fights.
Amal struggles to understand other people’s views. This can be seen when her friend Leila runs away after being set up for marriage by her mother. In the end, Amal realises that the different opinions of the people she knows are what shape her now and in the future.
Many online reviews have been written by Muslims. They all found themselves able to empathise with Amal’s struggle over whether to wear the hijab or not. They also like the authenticity of this book.
However, the non-Muslims who wrote reviews seemed to disbelieve the insults Amal receives.
The author of this book, Randa Abdel-Fattah has written several books for teenagers, including Where the streets had a name. She is also a lawyer.
I thought this was a well-written book. I recommend it to young teenagers because I thought the language was a little too simple for adolescents.
