All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Nadine Jolie Courtney's "All-American Muslim Girl" really struck a chord with me. It's a thoughtful exploration of identity and belonging in today's America, and as someone who's always interested in stories that delve into cultural nuances, this one hit close to home. Courtney's narrative follows an American Muslim girl navigating the complexities of faith, family expectations, and friendships in a society that often misunderstands or misrepresents her community.

What I found compelling was Courtney's honest portrayal of the protagonist's internal struggles. She takes us on a journey of self-discovery where the protagonist grapples with her beliefs and heritage while trying to find her place in the world. The book tackles some tough topics with sensitivity, especially when it comes to interfaith relationships and cultural identity.

While the pacing could be a bit uneven at times, Courtney's exploration of these themes is thought-provoking. She invites readers to rethink stereotypes and prejudices, offering a nuanced perspective on what it means to be Muslim in America today. All-American Muslim Girl is a relevant and timely read that encourages empathy and understanding in a world that can sometimes feel divided.

This book was outstanding! I love that it was so well written and handled the topics of religion so well! I found this to be one that I wanted to pick up again right after I finished.

It's been awhile since I dowloaded this book, but I decided to review it anyway. This was a really great book and I hope more people read it!

Fifteen-year-old Allie Abraham is an All-American Muslim Girl. Pale-skinned and red-headed, she looks typically Circassian and passes as white, especially since she and her parents are not particularly religious. However, she has an extended family of darker-skinned, Arabic-speaking, practicing Muslims, and her dad is still "foreign-looking" enough to receive racist and Islamophobic comments. Allie feels guilty for not being "Muslim enough," and for not using her white-passing privilege to stand up to bigotry when she encounters it. After a lifetime of trying her best to just fit in and not rock any boats, Allie begins to explore what Islam really is as a religion and becomes more open about her culture to her white friends. This puts some pressure on her developing romance with a boy named Wells, whose father happens to be a bigoted TV news pundit, and on her relationship with her father, who purposefully raised her to be as "American" as possible.

All-American Muslim Girl takes a different angle than other books I've read with Muslim MC's, because it investigates what it means to be a white-passing Muslim. Allie feels like she doesn't fit anywhere: her impostor syndrome activates around both her non-Muslim friends and her Muslim family. White people feel at ease around Allie, and show their true colors since they see her as "safe," meaning she must choose whether to stay quiet and seemingly condone their beliefs, or speak up and potentially put herself at risk. But she also feels disconnected from her family and culture, and is interested in pursuing Islam more seriously than her father would like. As she does so, she must find a way to balance her feminist beliefs with the teachings of the Qur'an-- something not all of her new Muslim friends agree on how to do. She wants to stay with her boyfriend (who is an absolute sweetheart, btw), but worries about his reactions to her new interests, and she wonders whether it's even acceptable for her to be dating at all. The narrative treats all of these complex issues with care and nuance.

This book is definitely very educational about Muslim faith and cultural practices, and I appreciate a lot of the questions that the narrative explores. I love it when YAs include teenagers who are interested in exploring religion and their beliefs, because I thought a lot about that kind of thing when I was that age (and still do, tbh). The writing style is a bit juvenile for my tastes, and some of the dialogue doesn't sound realistic. The story is crowded with characters who don't accomplish anything for the narrative, and the page time they take up would have been better used exploring the characters that do add something to the narrative in more depth (for example: Mikey, Serena, and the girls from Allie's Qur'an study group). Additionally (though this isn't the book itself's fault), my egalley copy doesn't include any of the texts or emails in the book, so I am missing any added value they bring to the story or the characters, which is supremely disappointing.

Overall, I think All-American Muslim Girl has an important story to tell and contains crucial and rare representation. It's somewhat repetitive and heavy-handed in places, and the writing style is just okay, but it's a quick read with some good messages and a really precious romance. 3.5 stars

TW: racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, death of a family member

I really liked the book ! The main character was liakable and I loved the plot ,I wish it was longer tho ,to enjoy it a little bit more

I really liked this story. It dealt with complex ideas of religion and especially of Islam. The main character was the perfect character to look at these. The only problem I had was pacing. The author didn't necessarily give each subject the amount of time it needed.

It's hard to review this book! On the one hand, i think the idea of the story is really important. On the other hand, I know Muslims who have a really big issue with how their religion is portrayed, so I'll say that I have to do a lot of listening and weighing before I recommend it.

Thank you publisher and netgalley for this early copy! I loved this novel, it touched me, taught me about a different culture from my own and made me cry. I’m hoping the author writes more in the future. 5/5 stars.

I got a little behind with some of my reviews, but not only will I use this in class, I did, this year! I had students choose a book from a supplemental book list to do a project on and this book was chosen by one of my students. Just like I thought it would, it really resonated with her and was a great way to show students from a very white, very Christian community a little bit of diversity through their reading. She really connected with the story, particularly the love story (she's a high school freshman, so of course) and I found myself even more a fan than I was to begin with.

Courtney has written a heartfelt book that examines the complexities of being a Muslim American woman while exploring the issues of faith and identity.

Thank you Net Galley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the e-arc.

This is absolutely one of the best books I have read this year. The character development truly made this story. I would definitely recommend this novel to others who are interested in gaining new perspectives on different cultures.

An unusual perspective for a teen romance: a Circassian-American Muslim girl tries to figure out having a boyfriend and her Muslim faith at the same time. A great deal of background about Islam is presented as Allie, whose parents are non-observant, begins to explore her faith. At times, information overrides plot and even character development. Characters all seemed to have a role to play, from the aggressive, conservative, bigoted father of her boyfriend, Wells, to the girls in her Muslim study group who represent a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. Even though Allie, Wells and her parents have some conflicts, in general they seem almost too good to be true and there's little actual tension to move the plot forward. Still, the book gets points for being an Own-Voices book. The Circassian community is definitely not over-represented in YA lit! Recommended for readers who do want to learn more about the challenges of life in America as a Muslim.

If there was ever a book that came closest to describing some my experience, it's this one. As an Arab person who appears white to the world, Ali is experiencing an identity crisis because she is often put in the position of people reading her as white and so justifying their bigoted remarks around her. Unlike myself, her name is not explicitly Arabic, which complicates this more. Her disconnectedness from Islam and the Arabic language is the sore spot between her and her dad, who insists on the scientific and assimilationist way of things, at the expense of Ali's cultural knowledge. Throw in some romance, a bigoted public personality, and some really important self-discovery and connection to her religion, this one nails it for me. The book was so engaging, and the character development was so important, I've recommended this one so much and will continue to do so.

ALL-AMERICAN MUSLIM GIRL by Nadine Jolie Courtney is an #OwnVoices young adult novel which deals with colorism and religion. The book begins powerfully with a scene on an airplane where the main character, teenager Allie Abraham, has to defuse another passenger's concern about Allie's Dad speaking Arabic on a phone call. Allie thinks, "Smiling is key. It confuses them. Anger ... indignation ... that's a luxury we don't have.” Although Allie's Dad is often marked as different ("From Somewhere Else"), her heritage is Circassian so with reddish-blonde hair and hazel eyes, she looks like other light-skinned Muslims from the Caucasus region and is more readily accepted. That causes Allie to struggle with questions of identity, thinking: "Maybe I'm betraying my fellow Muslims by stuffing half of my identity away. Maybe I'm just a cowardly traitor dripping in white privilege."

The author spends quite a while setting up the premise and introducing other characters, like Wells, a boyfriend for Allie, but the story gradually builds momentum and interest again as Allie decides to learn more about the Arabic language and the Qur'an, joining a small group of new friends to discuss Islam and women's rights. Allie struggles with maintaining friendships, with conflicts with her own parents, and with pressures from Wells' Dad, a kind of anti-immigrant "shock jock." In addition to many questions about being an ally, prejudice, and bias, middle school and early high school readers will find much to relate to here: "I've spent my entire life like an outsider: the perennial new girl, forever the tiniest bit out of sync." ALL-AMERICAN MUSLIM GIRL received multiple (Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly) starred reviews and I expect to see it on state award lists in the next few years.

On a related note, here is some information from School Library Journal, which in addition to promoting the We Need Diverse Books initiative, says "The American Library Association's 'Great Stories Club' series on Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation is a valuable resource. The reading and discussion program curates a list of books to help readers engage with the topic of racial healing. [Also,] We Stories is dedicated to encouraging white Americans to read diverse books with their children in order to decrease and counteract racial bias. Check out the facts and research on the ways children experience race to better understand how and why reading racially diverse titles for kids and teens can make such a big impact."

Links in live post:
https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=great-books-reshaping-african-american-narrative-picture-books-ya-booklist
https://diversebooks.org/
http://www.ala.org/tools/programming/greatstories/resources
http://www.westories.org/what-we-know

See my review on YALSA;s The Hub, where it is a Best Fiction for Young Adults (BFYA21) nominee:
http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2020/03/20/best-fiction-for-young-adults-bfya2021-nominees-round-up-march-20-edition/

I adored this fresh, thoughtful contemporary book. Nuanced books about religion in YA are so rare, and this book does it so well. Brimming with strong examples of female friendship, family, first love, and feminism, I know this is a book that so many will love.

Allie Abraham is the only daughter of an immigrant professor in search of a tenure track position and an American mother, who have recently settled in yet another new town just outside of Atlanta. Allie once again sets about fitting in with her new community, finding a group of friends and even beginning a relationship with a kind hearted new boyfriend. Though her extended family from Jordan and elsewhere in the states are practicing Muslims, Allie’s parents have given up most of the practices of Islam in an effort to keep their family safe from suspicion in a post 9/11 world. Ally can easily pass as an all American girl with her light complexion, she nevertheless feels left out as she is the only one of her extended network of cousins who does not practice the faith or speak Arabic. After finding a young women’s prayer and Koran study group, she begins to explore her religion in earnest. The book follows Allie as she comes to terms with the many layers of her life as a typical American teen while trying to reconcile her American culture with her growing Islamic faith.

The injustice and frustrations expressed in this work made me furious. It was easy to connect to the main character and her story, but I was occasionally so fed up with what was happening I had to put it down. Overall, really well down and I'm excited to see what this author writes next.

Alia is an American Muslim. Though her father and mother have not practiced their religion or exposed Allie to much about it, as a teen she wants to learn more.

It's a bit complicated for her though, as her non-Muslim boyfriend's father is a well-known TV commentator who does not like Muslims. And, of course, true Muslim girls aren't supposed to date. But, she joins a group of other Muslim girls exploring their heritage and tries to reconcile her American life with her religion.

This is a good coming-of-age story that most young adults will enjoy, though the emphasis on religion may put some teens off.

This book was SO good. Although a fictional story I felt like I learned so much about the Muslim culture by reading it. It was really enlightening while still being an easy to ready and enjoy book. I would definitely recommend.