This was my weekend read, just finished it last night and I liked it despite some caveats. The story and characters were all great, sometimes the prose just felt a bit forced and stilted, and it was overly long. There was a large section in the middle where the story sort of ground to a halt. Nevertheless, there were lots of good qualities!
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It’s set between New York and Morocco, just after the Twin Towers fell. After 9/11, Jeehan - American, Arab and Muslim - finds herself an unofficial spokesperson for the non-Arabs and non-Muslims she comes into contact with - people she barely even knows. These people are angry, indignant, and most of all ignorant. They want answers to a question they haven’t even begun to understand. They don’t want to understand, they just want to remain in a state of ‘righteous’ anger, railing against every Muslim and Arab (one and the same in their minds) they meet. Jeehan realises the freedom she felt as an American citizen was conditional, and that sends her into a tailspin.
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I really enjoyed the parts set in Morocco, where Jeehan is trying to look into human trafficking for an article. But then the middle part happened and that part of the story seemed to be forgotten about, until it’s picked up again in the last 100 pages. I think it just needed a firmer hand when it came to editing! I’d still recommend it though; the book is influenced by the author’s own harrowing experience witnessing the Towers fall, and there are some truly moving and thought-provoking sections.