I ended up really loving this!! The structure of the book worked for me as each section referred back to a specific figure from the Quran. So many of the author’s reflections around queerness/faith/family/love resonated and I appreciated the care and insight with which she wrote this book. I appreciate a memoir that is both self and socially-reflexive, and found that the stories Lamya chose to share about their life had a “here is how and why I orient myself in the world this way” and I feel like I could have read so much more of this as the depth of insight kept building throughout the book.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the e-ARC!!

Hijab Butch Blues is an interesting read about one person’s journey with queerness and religion. I loved it. In this memoir, Lamya writes beautiful reflections on her identity, God, and family that I found relatable and poignant. The narrative arc follows Lamya through different parts of their life as reflected through various women from the Quran.

Through Lamya’s gorgeous writing, she shows how her relationship with religion gives her the freedom to apply lessons and themes from the Quran to her own life.

As someone who is personally not religious, I have ignorantly wondered how people are able to reconcile personal identity with religion when those two things seem to be at odds, at least from an outsider’s perspective.

Lama’s memoir opened my eyes and taught me that my own prejudices against religion have limited my view of the world. Lamya’s memoir is not only a beautiful self-reflection of the author’s journey, but an opportunity for non-religious people to understand a different point of view.

Lamya H.'s Hijab Butch Blues is flat out one of the best books I've ever read both in terms of content and the quality of its prose. Lamya H., born in south Asia, raised on the Arabian Peninsula, and now living as an immigrant in the U.S., writes under a pseudonym and leaves locations vague to preserve her anonymity, safety, and family connections. Why? Because as a devout Muslim, a lesbian, and an immigrant she's acutely aware of her tenuous state and aware of the lack of spaces where she can simultaneously exercise her faith and live as her true self.

To those coming from other, less tenuous situations, her need for anonymity may sound exaggerated—but for those who share her experiences and those willing to embrace the truths of her own life as she explains them, her concerns are well-founded. Her prose is both precise and beautiful. She challenges herself with her own thinking every bit as much as she does her readers.

What makes this book so remarkable is Lamya's integrity both as a Muslim trying to create a lens that allows her to see her faith broadly and affirmingly and as a scholar and political thinker aware of the ways colonialism and hierarchies of color shape our world.

The memoir swings, pendulum-like, between her own story and her reflections on the stories at the heart of Islam, stories that shape her understanding of what it means (or can mean) to be female and Muslim. This pairing of personal and theological truths is powerful and respectful of both individual and cultural identity.

If this description makes you think that Hijab Butch Blues will speak to you in remarkable ways, you're right. If this description makes you think that her story may have little to teach you, you're wrong. The carefully documented specifics of her life are what make this book universally essential reading. I'm urging you, if possible, to purchase a copy of this book. Publishers need to see that this is a topic and presentation valued to a wide range of readers. If you can't purchase it, request it now at your local library. We need a world of literature that is as broad as the world in which literature is written.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

What was the last book that gave you goosebumps?

Not gonna lie, I was a bit nervous to read this book because of the title - Stone Butch Blues was too emotionally heavy for me. But I'm SO GLAD I did because Hijab Butch Blues is fantastic, powerful, and introspective. There are heavy themes, yes, but there is also an undercurrent of queer love, reverence, and hope:

🌈The joy of beautifully-written, queer, nonbinary, butch, hijabi Muslim stories and representation!

🌈Queering the format - each essay draws parallels between Lamya's life and the stories of the Quran. Never seen anything like this before and it's excellent!

🌈Usually the intersection of queer identity and faith translates to big trauma. Instead, Lamya is devout because of their identity, not in spite of it. They see queerness in their religion and it's validating and transformative.

🌈The joy of finding your queer community, especially those that share your identities and lived experiences.

Big thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you to Net Galey and Random House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This memoir takes you on the journey with the author as she navigates her queerness and religion (Islam) and what it means to be a queer Muslim woman. Accepting herself for who she is but also finding her way with dating, presenting to the family, friends and the world. I appreciated the author's openness and sharing her thoughts and progression through her experience. Having a glimpse into another person's experience is priceless.

An astonishingly powerful book about the intersections of queerness, religion, and societal expectations. I'm usually not one for memoirs, but Lamya's story swept me along and I couldn't put it down.

Thank you so much to Random House and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lamyah, like her memoir, is impossible to box in or even summarize. Their story is one of courage and curiosity, and learning to architect their own life path and identity - despite constantly feeling otherized by a world obsessed with definitions and categories. They set the example of learning to accept and express all aspects of who you are - your religion, sexuality, gender, race - all co-existing without reservation or conditions. This is also a story of exhaustion, loneliness, resignation, and the desire to disappear from a world that places the entire burden of embracing these complexities on the individual.

I love how they did not just automatically reject their religion, instead found their own interpretaton and way to connect with their religion without obfuscating their own identity and values.

The memoir is organized into three parts:
• Lamya’s productive yet lonely childhood, immersed in Islamic studies and early questions about gender, race, and sexuality. Lamya is striving to find her own personal, radical, and individual connection to stories in Islam. There’s a lingering sense of disconnection and feeling ignored and invisible to their rich Arab friends, and sometimes even family
• Lamya’s journey to the U.S. while giving her the space to explore her own path and identity, was rife with feeling both hypervisible and invisible with their “brown hijabi Muslim body”
• Lamya’s coming out experience and learning to love and be loved without compromising their authentic self and values; their awakening to the negative effects of internalized white supremacy and homophobia. They learn to be selective on how they interact with people, what they accept, when to fight and when to quit.

Challenging and poignant, this provocative yet unpretentious memoir evokes the deep loneliness felt when ones own uniqueness and complexities don’t feature in mainstream narratives or stories. Such was the journey of young Lamya H (pseudonym used by the author), who moved away from a South Asian country to an Arab country, and later in life, to the U.S. Even their assimilation to the American culture is challenging - they face homophobia from Muslims and Islamophobia from queer friends at social gatherings.

The theme of how it feels to be a “brown” immigrant in the U.S resonated with me on a personal level. Despite attending a “prestigious college” on scholarship, Lamya H recounts how they have to go everywhere with copies of their papers, frequently “selected” for random spot checks on campus and elsewhere when none of her peers were. They were told: “You’re being asked for your ID because you’re Muslim. We’re fighting a war against Muslims right now, so they’re all scary”

Not to mention the numerous bureaucracies and barriers to getting a visa despite her qualifications; They describe their anxiety of getting their visa extended being much more than finding a job. Lamya H describes the experience “specifically designed to be terrifying - I’m hyperaware of myself and my body, hyperaware that I need to choose my outfit so I come across as not just competent and organized, but also well adjusted, physically, healthy, mentally sound”. The author is so perceptive - it kind of shook me at how much I had glossed over and simply accepted in my own student immigration journey to the U.S.

I also began reading outside the book to better understand perspectives of women who choose to wear the Hijab, and the distinctions among the various forms in which Muslim women cover themselves: the burka covers the entirety of the face, the niqab covers most of the face but leaves slits for the yes, and the hijab only covers the hair.

For many this is a personal choice (though separately acknowledging that sadly there are many who are forced to wear the hijab). In this memoir, Lamya H describes her choice to wear a Hijab as part of her identity, her sense of self and feeling that choice being used against her and questioned with fear and prejudice. For many Muslim women, I learned, the hijab affords recognition for “who they are, not what they look like”. Media over the years has objectified and sexualized women’s bodies - video games, super heroine movies or comics, pretty much any movie with a strong lead woman. Instead of being an oppressive tool, the hijab can be a choice to assert their own will over what others get to see. “Modesty has a beauty of its own” (quotes from article by Hanadi Jordan, in the California Aggie)

Growing up in a secular, South Asian environment - we celebrated several religious holidays with equal vigor but this memoir challenged my notions of how religious faith can coexist (and even thrive) with seemingly surface-level differences in our sense of identity: gender, sexuality, norms, social hierarchies and at its core our sense of belonging. I was drawn to this memoir to learn, engage and explore these layers and reading this memoir was as intimate as conversing with a close friend.

Highly recommend reading this beautifully written memoir

I loved this!!! So informational and interesting. I loved Lamya’s interpretation of the Quran. The queer interpretation was really important and her critique and commentary are so relevant

This was just excellent. I appreciate the full story from their childhood to moving to tnhe US and the diffrent ways of finding community and themselves and the challenges. Highly recommend

This is a beautiful memoir with a wonderful interweaving of stories from the Quran. The author's incorporation of her translations of scripture within her own life and experience gave the book a unique feel that was very satisfying to read. The author's story is certainly compelling enough in itself, but the addition of the stories, familiar to anyone familiar with Abrahamic religions, gives the reader special insight into the author's inner world. This was truly a joy to read.

I went into this memoir with no expectations, but came out really enjoying it. I really enjoyed learning more about Islam, and the stories that come from the Quran. I also really enjoyed how she was able to tie her experience to her religion, and the stories that came from that I didn’t expect to relate to parts of the story so much. I know the author doesn’t have the ability to come out to her parents, which is a similar situation I’m in, so I was very happy to see a memoir that highlights a lot of the experiences BIPOC LGBTQ people face on a daily basis.

Overall, this book was really enjoyable and I’m glad I read it.

Moving, thought-provoking, quiet, kind. A real balm for a lesbian dealing with some religious trauma. More books like this about the butch experience please.

Alienated from country and kin, Lamya turns to her faith for guidance in Hijab Butch Blues. Searching for her identity, she knows she is attracted to women, wonders if God is they, has a crush on her school teacher, and finds inspiration from the Koran stories of Mary, Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

In Mary, she wonders if she were not touched by a man would that indicate she is a lesbian? In Noah, she must find faith in herself when no one else believes. In Abraham, confusion as to her purpose. In Moses, a miracle for herself.

A beautiful memoir that weaves faith into her journey to found family and her true self.

A compelling memoir with stories from the Quran woven beautifully in. Sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, I loved getting to experience Lamya’s coming of age, growing into herself, and forming communities.

This book portrays someone who struggles to make sense of their queer identity in the face of religion. The character reevaluates what religion means to them by reexamining religious text from their unique point of view. While I am not Muslim, I have seen some people critiquing the character equating Allah to nonbinary. I think that it is important to read this book not as a guide to this religion, but as someone's interpretation of religion and how they can connect religion to their queer identity.

I would recommend this book because it is not only unique but fascinating to read.

This is an absolutely stunning memoir, and one that I kind of want everyone to read. The writing is absolutely fantastic, my eyes were glued to my Kindle the whole way through. It was so interesting, thought-provoking, and insightful the way the author discussed the relation between her queerness and her religion, connecting her own experiences to stories from the Quran.

Hijab Butch Blues is an incredibly moving, beautifully written memoir and coming of age story. Each chapter of the book weaves stories from the Quran with the story of Lamya's life, drawing connections between the messages of the Quran and her lived experience as a queer, brown, Muslim, immigrant. I found the chapter with the story of Muhammed, which is told in second person, particularly moving. She is talking to Muhammed - telling him his story and asking him questions about his thoughts and feelings - and interweaving it with the the story of her finally, finally, finally finding her people, her queer Muslim community.

The memoir is very introspective and raw. She really lays herself bare, something her anonymity gives her the safety to do. She takes her life story and presents it in a way that really highlights the uniqueness of her life experiences while also distilling them down to thoughts and feelings that are extremely relatable and common.

What a thoughtful, reflective memoir. I loved reading about Lamya's life and coming of age. I learned a lot about her faith and the Quran, which I honestly knew very little about going in to this book. Beautifully written and full of heart!

WOW!!! I have no words for how incredible Hijab Butch Blues is. The parallels between Lamya's life and stories in the Quran were stunning and informative. Reading about an often overlooked queer experience is something we all should be doing! 5/5 book

This book… is maybe the most seen I’ve felt in literature in a long time. Which feels odd since I am a queer white woman in a high demand Christian religion and this book is about a queer hijabi Muslim woman. but this book feels so relatable.

The description of depression in this book is maybe the first time I have seen how I feel written down so concisely on a page. It took so long for me to identify that what I was feeling was depression because I wasn’t experiencing it how others were. This book really nails exactly how I have felt when my depression gets bad.

The struggle to take a fairly conservative religious and familial culture and to learn and to make your religion your own feels very relatable too. Taking all those things you took as truth and reevaluating them, reading between the lines of scriptural stories. It is such a hard process and yet it opens up a world of difference, love, and progress. This book made me want to reread the Quran and the Bible to find radical love and queer acceptance there.

This book deals with really hard topics, and does so in such a beautiful way. The way it weaves in scriptural narratives and how they relate to her life makes this book read sometimes like a scripture study with the author, and what a great study partner to have.