This book was a timely, important, multi-cultural, layered story of a boy finding his way in the world, living into the truth of who he is, and navigating the rocky terrain of religious, familial, and societal pressures and expectations. I’m so grateful for books like this one, that give me a chance to “climb into someone’s skin and walk around in it” like Atticus Finch said. I’ll never know what it’s like to be Muslim and gay as a teenage boy in America, but this book gave me a peek into that experience. It didn’t seem completely realistic (his solo jaunt to Italy to escape his family finding out his sexuality was a bit far-fetched, and the friends he met there seemed too old for him) but hey— it’s a story, it took some liberties, and it all was part of making the point that we can’t ever outrun who we are, or how loved we are.