The first thing that stuck out to me in Hijab Butch Blues was the structure. Each section & chapter is based on another notable person in the Quran. We are introduced to a bit of each person's story alongside Lamya's own life, in creative and imaginative ways. Within each chapter we get multiple subsections, each a few minutes up to 20 or so minutes on average. 

I think one reason I took so long to start this book is my own experiences with homophobia & transphobia in organized religion, specifically under the guise of Christianity. I generally avoid media that predominantly feature Christianity, and sometimes this inadvertently spills over into other organized religion as a whole subconsciously. But instead of simply religious trauma (which, don't get me wrong, we do see homophobia and transphobia under the guise of Islam in Hijab Butch Blues), we see a complex view of religion in helping come to terms with queerness. I love Lamya's realization of Allah being trans in their interpretation, so of course they must be welcoming to queer expansiveness. I loved the queer analogies to stories in the Quran, how Lamya comes closer to themself as both a queer person and a Muslim person both in these moments. I don't often get to see these tender moments in religion, and this made me address my own preconceived notions on all organized religion based on my personal experiences with Christianity. 

I can see myself coming back to this book over and over and learning new things about Lamya and myself each time. There is so much depth and emotion here, I cannot recommend this book enough. A definite contender to one of my favorite books of 2025.

Some of my favorite parts are the chapter/section on Allah and seeing God through an inherently queer light, as well as the queer joy when Lamya finally realizes their queerness and when they get their partner to experience some of the joys and not just the heartaches of queerness. I really appreciated some of the last few chapters for fully understanding why someone may never come out -- not because of not being proud of themself or self-hating in some way, not in any less of a queer way, but because of the context that sometimes losing all of your vital community, a huge part of your sense of self, isn't worth the gains of coming out. It made me reconsider some of my own feelings of guilt for not coming out to all of my family yet, if I'm "queer enough" if I haven't.

I highly recommend reading this by audiobook, if possible, as the narrator really brings the emotions to life. The anger, the disappointment, the awe at discovering queerness at different points through life. I was worried about reading a memoir not read by the author (who, in this case, is anonymous), but I had nothing to worry about as Lamya's story is really brought to life through the audiobook. My only gripe about the audiobook, at least when listening on Libro.fm and I assume is the case on other platforms as well, is that I wish there were markers for each of these sub-chapters to break up the roughly hour long chapter/section for each notable person from the Quran.

I'd say this book is mostly reflective, but please know there are some very heavy and challenging moments, so please check out the trigger warnings and read when you are in a space to do so.

a few of my favorite (approximate, as read via audio) quotes:

Representation: