Does My Head Look Big In This?

Randa Abdel-Fattah's novel Does My Head Look Big In This? is a book that I read as an independent reading project for my Young Adults Literature class. Our assignment was to read a book that was outside our normal reading genre, make a little speech about it to the class (with one a one-sentence summary) that also included who we would recommend the book to and what characteristics made it good young adult literature. As is obvious from the cover, the book is about a Muslim girl, but my one-sentence summary didn't focus on that, just like the book. The book is actually about 16-year-old Amal and her life, dealing with school, friends, family, and society, with the extra pressure of deciding to wear a hijab full-time. That decision - that was entirely her choice to make! - begins the book, and it covers a year in her life from there. Obviously the decision was a big deal to her - she wanted to show her devotion to her faith (and maaaybe for the attention) in a first-world country (Australia) at a time where tensions were high: the book was set one year after 9/11, and she actually faces the anniversary of the event wearing her hijab. While it was a big deal to her and her life, within the novel itself the act is not treated as a big deal. There is so much more to the novel than a girl who put on her head-scarf. Amal is a loud vibrant girl (I actually want to go for a coffee with her, because our personalities are very similar), who likes shopping, being there for her friends - girl and boy, Muslim and Christian - and has to deal with school pressures and parents. A point she makes in the book is that she's not just a Muslim girl, and I feel the book did very well conveying that.
Another important feature in the book is the emphasis on the difference between culture and religion. Amal and her parents are very straight-forward Muslims, her uncle and cousins are changing their behavior to act more Australian while still keeping their faith, and one of her friends has a mother who, because of the way she was raised, is very strict on her daughter about keeping to the appearances and rituals of their faith. The novel features many perceptions and stereotypes about those of Islamic faith (they also spelled out the difference between Muslim and Islam, and I'm really disappointed that I don't have the book next to me so I can write what she actually said, because it was really good) and destroys those illusions, such as the belief of Amal's classmates that her father is forcing her to wear the hijab, when he really tried to talk her out of wearing it full-time in an effort to protect her from any racist remarks. The religion was just a part of Amal's life, just a normal part of her day, and the novel didn't make a big deal of it. I chose this book because I don't normally read books in the "daily lives of teenage girls" genre, and also because I'm not a fan of religion in any way, shape, or form. I've read too many preachy Christian novels, and I hoped this novel wouldn't be like those - and I was right! Religion was just another part of Amal's life, just as important to her as her family and friends.
For me, the book was both relatable and unrelatable. Obviously, I am not an Australian-Pakistani Muslim girl who likes shopping, but Amal is still a teenage girl, and she and her friends act like teenagers! In most other young adult novels, the protagonist/narrator tends to be an outsider, someone on the edge with few friends. Amal has many friends in and out of school, and calls, emails, and talks to them the way that teenagers do: loudly, frantically, talking over each other, and randomly screaming. Her friends also have their own lives and their own troubles, which spill over into Amal's life, and that is another relatable feature of the book. One of the situations was so similar to something I personally went through that I actually got scared all over again. So refreshing after reading books where the dialogue is so wooden and unbelievable. Reading from someone with a different religion, place of living, and experiences is a good way to draw in readers and keep them interested, and this book really fulfilled.
A reader would need to have an open mind to read this book, and also a sense of humor, because Amal is funny. I can't understate the importance of this novel, because it deals with problems that are still a part of society today. This book did a great job of showing us the world of a girl very different than what readers know, and I am very tempted to buy the book to add to my own shelf. 4.5 out of 5 stars, would read again.