This compelling memoir recounts the author’s childhood and young adulthood as the youngest daughter of Iranian immigrants in Toronto. I enjoyed the whole book, but the parts that I found the most stirring involved the author’s reckoning with her identity as a queer Muslim woman. In one memorable section, she breaks up with a beloved partner because she worries her sexuality and identity as an Iranian woman are at odds. She loves her family deeply, and doesn’t believe they’ll accept this part of her. But as she matures, we watch her integrate the “exiled” parts of her identity, owning her queerness, her culture and her faith.

While the details of this book are obviously particular to the author’s experience, many of its themes feel universal. At its heart is the question of how to honour your family of origin while maturing into the person you’re becoming. I think readers of all ages will enjoy this, but I would especially recommend to university-aged people going through their own times of transition and maturation. I think queer youth from conservative religious backgrounds will feel particularly seen by this book.

Thank you Net Galley for the advance copy of All The Parts We Exile.
Such a wonderful memoir of a woman who is figuring out how to fit in with a world that doesn’t understand her.
This is one of those books that I wish I had taken notes throughout as I will not remember all of the feelings I felt throughout.
As she begins to understand that she is gay, she is torn by her family and faith that does not accept that. Like so many others, causing her to deny who she is to try and be someone who could fit.
I loved how eloquently she described how safe she felt in Iran despite not being able to be herself. The reader could certainly understand the conflict within her.
Another part of the book is through her University years, where she describes the promiscuity and her belief that relationships were about sex. She doesn’t make this out to be wrong for all, but does a great job of describing what it is like to be someone who doesn’t possess the same values but feels pressure to be the same way, all because she is trying to find where she fit in.
Bringing to light the fact that there exists countries that not only makes it difficult to be gay, but actually criminalizes it is an important book to be circulating.
Not a long book, but it packs a punch, with so many more discussion points. There are times in the book to laugh, cry, be angry, relieved, so many emotions.