Another great novel from Randa Abdel-Fattah! TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT ME has a somewhat less positive tone. In case you couldn't tell from the title --- which, despite its play on a popular movie title, manages to convey some real self-loathing --- Jamilah spends most of the book feeling down on herself, her family, even her choice of friends.
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by Nur Syakirah bt Hamdan
After the sudden death of her mother years ago, Jamilah and her older brother and sister have been raised by their conservative Lebanese-Muslim father. Being the youngest is not easy, since her older sister, Shereen, is forever finding ways to irritate their father, and her brother, Bilal, is a constant disappointment. It's no wonder that Jamilah has begun to live a double life - one at home and another at school.
She has dyed her dark hair blonde and wears contacts to hide her dark eyes. At home she is Lebanese-Muslim, but at school everyone thinks she is just a normal Sydney-born Australian like the majority of the students in the tenth grade.
Unfortunately, things aren't going very well.
Jamilah loves her heritage - the music, the religious beliefs, the food, and the family, but she hates the rules that go along with all she loves. Her father believes in a strict curfew that requires her to be home by sunset. She dreams of having a boyfriend and going on a date, but that's totally out of the question. As a result, Jamilah finds herself trying to balance both lives. Her friends see one side of her and her family sees the other.
While at school, Jamilah observes members of the popular crowd viciously taunting any students from different ethnic backgrounds. To keep her own secret, she shamefully watches silently, afraid the cruelty could be directed towards her if she speaks up to defend the others. With her double life threating to crumble around her, she attempts to convince her domineering father that she needs more freedom than he is willing to allow.
TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT ME gives readers a glimpse into the Lebanese-Muslim culture and at the same time demonstrates that the true and honest path is not always the easiest to travel, but perhaps the most satisfying in the end.
This second review is on a relatively popular book that has managed to reach a fair amount of people, though not as admired as the Twilight series.
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DOES MY HEAD LOOK BIG IN THIS? by Nur Syakirah bt Hamdan
Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah is a must-read novel which the element of Islam is well-portrayed. It's a story about a girl named Amal - a Muslim girl living in Australia. Before school reopened, she decided to wear the hijab (a head scarf worn by Muslim women) and because of her own decision she gets varying response from her family and buddies. To make matters worse, Amal had recently transferred to a very white-bread prep school, where the environment is completely different and it's going to be hard for her to fit in with that environment. She is inspired to wear the hijab when her best friends Yasmeen and Leila from Hidayah School wear the hijab full-time. At the McCleans Grammar School she also has friends, Eileen and Simone who are really understanding and always support her at whatever she's doing.
Amal is just a normal teenage girl. She loves shopping, gossiping, giggling with her friends and sometimes having a hard time with her parents and getting annoyed with her friends, especially Tia Tamos, Claire Foster and Rita Mason. She has a strong debating side of her personality with a value of doing what’s right and what will make everyone happy. She also has a strong value for her religion and what she believes in. She is a religious Muslim who prays five times a day, but she is also a normal teenage girl who likes to hang out with her friends, shop, have a girls’ night out, and even has a crush on a boy named Adam. She hates the fact that she can’t have a boyfriend, but is still satisfied with the relationship she has with Adam.
There are still a lot of problems that she has to face other than dealing with people who think wearing a scarf is weird and not-up-to-date-fashion. Case in point is when her friend Leila gets fed up with her mother's marriage set-ups and runs away. Amal has to deal with Leila's frustration over the fact that her mother is not practicing her religion correctly and Leila's mother's beliefs. Amal also has an aunt and uncle that are totally "Aussie" and do not follow Amal's religion at all, and question her why she, herself, follows it. Amal must also deal with a cranky Greek neighbor who has stopped talking to her only son because he converted. Amal becomes good friends with her and tries to coax her to talk to her son, after so many years of silence. I really love this book and I give this book 5 stars. I would like to recommend this book to all students to read it as it has lots of moral values. Besides, you can learn a lot more about Islam.
Rating : 5/5