This was one of those books where I shouldn't have listened to it on a Friday because it was giving me a lot of feelings—mostly of the "everything hurts and what do I do because I can't make these peoples' lives better—and processing feelings while cooking for Shabbat is...less than helpful.
It was heart-hurting and heart-mending though. And thank goodness I finished it before candlelighting.
It was good and hard and there are two things I want to talk about.

1 - Salahudin as a character was so well drawn and also

I could have sworn he was autistic and the reveal for what actually happened was both awful but also complicated for me because of the way that a) autistic kids are so often traumatized and b) our baseline is his trauma. It's not that Tahir did anything wrong and it makes perfect sense and also there's a lot to unpack there.

2 - Imam Shafiq and Sister Khadija are some of the most accurately depicted clergy I have ever read. I realize there's a ton in this book about the American dream and outsiders and loss and how people deal with trauma and what it means to heal, but...Tahir's power couple that serves as spiritual guides to the small community and works ridiculously hard and shows up when they're needed without judgement and always with food - so accurate and I really appreciated it.