A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi – the author of the Shatter Me fantasy series has been on my TBR a while, and yes, I did buy it based on the authors name alone, so what?
A vague summary
This book is set in 2002 and follows Shirin, a muslim who wears a Hijab in a largely white high school in a rural American town. Shirin has faced a lot of racism at every school she’s been too, which is a few because her parents move around a lot chasing the American dream. The hatred she is faced with has increased tenfold post Nine Eleven and Shirin is jaded, angry and completely closed off. When she joins yet another new school, it’s no different, except for one boy, the star basketball player who is in-explicably interested in her, her culture, her interests and getting to know her as a person. Despite her best efforts to put him off, their friendship starts to grow, potentially into something more but Shirin is afraid he’s being naive about what this will mean for him if they start dating. All through this she is working with her brother and a group of friends on learning to Breakdance. Things come to a head when their relationship is revealed and it threatens everything, Ocean’s place on the team and future college scholarship and Shirin’s safety is in jeopardy, confirming all of her worst fears just as she found herself willing to start opening up to people again.
My thoughts
This is very much the kind of book that’s like a snapshot in time of the character’s life. It’s this one year in high-school where she meets a boy who breaks past her – justified- defences. I thought it was a really clever way to show the political climate at that time in America and what it must have been like to be someone who was easily identifiable as Muslim at that time. Showing it within the context of teen high school drama, from a teens point of view, makes it more impactful without drawing on constant misery to make the point. It really made me reflect on what it must have been like to be Muslim at that time both in US and UK, as I was so young at the height of it, these things didn’t really register, plus my town was not as diverse back then as it is now.
I thought the conclusion was clever, as it kind of showed how baseless this hatred was, without it being a big moment – by Shirin and the other breakdancers performing in the talent show and winning, changing the opinion of the entire school about Shirin. It really shows how these kids have been socialised/ propagandered to think about Muslims one way, and all it took was them getting to know another dimension of her to let it go.
This is a short read, totally different from the author’s other books, but might make an interesting study for someone trying to teach about this period of time or prejudice.
