This is actually a re-publish, edited version. Just the -write and delete- thing I do. Lewlz.
I have been reading Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah. I finished reading it earlier this year actually.
Amal is a 16-year-old Melbourne teen with all the usual obsessions about boys, chocolate and Cosmo magazine. She's also a Muslim, struggling to honour the Islamic faith in a society that doesn't understand it. This title presents the story of her decision to 'shawl up' and its attendant anxieties. - goodreads
Reviews are too mainstream (lewlz). So here are some of my favorite quotes from the book.
"Rachel from Friends inspired me. The sheikhs will be holding emergency conferences." - Amal
"... this warm feeling buzzes through you and you smile to yourself, knowing God's watching you, knowing that He knows you're trying to be strong to please Him. Like you're both in a private joke and something special and warm and extraordinary is happening and nobody in the world knows about it because it's your own experience, your own personal friendship with your Creator." - Amal
"Then we all get into this massive fight about respecting girls for their minds not their bra sizes." - Amal
"I think I begin to understand that there's more to this hijab than the whole modesty thing." - Amal
"Who cares what normal is, Simone?" - Amal
"... it occurs to me that all it's taken is a couple of good friends and a lot of chocolate to make me forget I'm the 'girl who wears hijab'." - Amal
"... it's naive to think that because somebody is ignorant they are a bad person." - Jamila
"... try to expand your mind and think about things from other people's perspectives. Everything is relative. If you want to understand a problem you look at its cause. You don't look at its manifestation." - Jamila
"No one can be gutsy all the time." - Eileen
"It's weird not to respect choice." - Amal
"I wouldn't be considered a Muslim if I didn't believe in Jesus Christ." - Amal
"Sometimes it's easy to lose faith in people. And sometimes one act of kindness is all it takes to give you hope again." - Amal
"She's too old to hate. Get to that age and you don't have the energy." - Jamila
"... happiness is relative." - Amal
"But your choice in end, I guessing. Oh well. No one should telling no one what to do when come to God. You no have salvation but you laugh a lot. Maybe Jesus let you in." - Mrs Vaselli
"See zis ash, Amal? Za cigarette it burns, za ash falls, some bits solid zen zey fall apart, zey disappearing into tiny bits and zey fading away. To making it whole again you needing to go and finding each bit and putting togezer again, yes?" ; "Too many bits, Amal." - Mrs Vaselli
"School work's making me age prematurely, but that's called education." - Amal
"We didn't need to apologize for our heritage." - Mr Aziz
"Nobody is free from prejudice I guess." - Amal
"... because belief means nothing without action." - Amal
"Putting on the hijab isn't the end of the journey. It's just the beginning of it." - Amal
"But it kind of dawned on me then that at the end of the day nobody knows what I do behind closed doors." - Amal
"When you're fasting, even a minute counts." - Amal
"Life isn't like the movies. People don't change overnight. People don't go from arrogant and self-righteous to ashamed and remorseful." - Amal
"... does he think that he can face God after ignoring the zebra stripes after the roundabout?" - Jamila
"I know that separating your upbringing from who you are is like trying to separate flour from butter in a cake." - Amal
"Rebuttal always was your good point." Ms Walsh
"To Be or Not To Be." - Amal (This is actually from Shakespeare but Amal said it in the book so... LOL)
Again, these are my personal favorite. I bet it's because I can relate lewlz.
I rated this book four stars on goodreads because I can't give a 3.5. Lewlz.
This book can be purchased from MPH for RM 38.90. But I was lucky to buy it at only RM 8.00. Thank you Big Bad Wolf. Yeayza!
Till then hooman, tata. (: