""I have been racking my brain to figure out what's different about you and I got it."
"My hijab?" I said sarcastically.
"No, it's that you somehow walk in like you're a man."
"A white man."
"Yes, a white man."
Constantly being underestimated has always been helpful to me. It was really hard for him to imagine that a ninety-pound refugee hijabi could be confident enough to walk into a leadership role of a caucus whose most important incumbent she defeated."

Ilhan Omar above all is a fighter, that much is clear from her memoir. The memoir is funny, sad, so openly honest and so very interesting as she recounts her early childhood in Somalia, her family fleeing to Kenya during the civil war and time spent in the refugee camps, her move to America in her teenage years and her time through the American education system before she eventually became engaged with politics. The different phases of her life are clearly split out and Ilhan shares so openly how at different points she changed her relationships with her family, her religion and her own ambitions. Her journey has clearly not been easy but the memoir is so deeply absorbing.

Even when she made it to Congress she had to overturn a 181-year-old ban on headwear in order to be allowed to wear her hijab in Congress. She's faced countless threats, been physically attacked and suffered great loss in her life. However, her strength, her resilience, her determination to fight for a better America shine so brightly in this memoir.

It's an incredibly readable memoir, and she's an absolutely incredible woman. The whole thing left me in tears and in awe. I don't have much more to say as I don't think you can rate memoirs, but this book is about an utterly fantastic woman. She cares so deeply about her community, her beliefs and her people and I think that shines through in the book. Even if you're not interested in American politics, this is about her life, her family, the Somalian community, the Muslim community, being a Black woman, a mother, a refugee and more. I 100% recommend this book to everyone.

"Pride, strength, and responsibility - all of those notions are the domain of people in comfort and safety. When you're facing death, you're not guided by your importance or your past, and you certainly don't worry about whether your pride is intact. Again and again, I witnessed that if you can push through whatever is happening today, tomorrow might be worse, but it could also be better. The only option for the human spirit is to keep going."