Sadia

I was super excited to be given a copy of this book from NetGalley. I haven't read many books with Muslim main characters, but this year I've been working on reading more diverse books. Hence why I requested this! What I liked from the beginning was the fact that this book is MG, as much as I love YA I do also like to see that diversity is getting into all age groups. This is definitely a book I would like to get someday for my children's future library. Sadia is a fairly quick read, it's around 240 pages and is fast-paced. While I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style, I did enjoy everything else about the book.  Sadia herself is a great character. She's smart and kind and a good friend. I think it was interesting to see the contrast in the three girls, Sadia, Amira and Nazareen. I think the only thing that I didn't really care for were Sadia's parents. They weren't terrible, but I did feel like they put some pressure on Sadia to conform to their religion the way that they wanted her to. Instead of giving her more of a choice. But then I'm very sensitive to religion in books and how parents act in books, so that could have just been me.Either way, I still liked this book at the end of the day.  And I gave it four stars on Goodreads.

" Three female Muslim teenagers must decide how far they are willing to go to defend their beliefs when faced with the pressures of life." Gimme that book!Sadia, a story that could have gone right, but it didn't!I am not going to lie, the major reason why I picked up this book is because of its cover. I also like how the plot revolves around an athletic, muslim, refugee girl called Sadia. That being said, let us dive into what went wrong.1) Friend takes off her hijab tropeI don't understand why non-muslim authors who decide to write muslim characters are always gravitated to that topic.descriptionDo some muslim girls take off their hijab?Yes!But if the 1st thing that comes to your mind when you think of muslim girls is " Let us make her take her hijab off", then no thank you.2) All muslims wear hijab trope.When a new muslim refugee girl from Syria joins Sadia's school, she sees Sadia's best friend Nazreen.“Your friend Nazreen,” Amira asked quietly. “Is she Muslim?”“Yeah. She’s from Egypt.”“But she doesn’t wear hijab.”descriptionThe author said that she has done her research, but that mini conversation shows that she didn't research that much. Syria and Egypt are filled with Muslim girls & women who don't wear the Hijab, so why is Amira confused when she realizes that Nazreen is a muslim, but she does't wear the hijab?3) Another research issue I noticed is Amira being stunned by snow, when it actually snows in Syria. .4) Muslim girls unable to play sports, especially with hijab and with men trope.descriptionI want you to do a quick search of muslim girls and women who are athletic....Have you ever watched the Olympics and the World Cup? Because every time, Egyptian Hijabi women and girls are participating in those. Sometimes, their coaches are men.Growing up, I trained and participated in many sports. In all of them, except for ballet, the group I was training with included both, boys and girls.4) The idea of women playing sports is a new, breakthrough achievement for muslims trope.“You’re the basketball player! Amira talks about you. You play in hijab, she said. With the boys!”Mrs. Nasser looked at me as if she couldn’t believe it.There were a couple of things that I liked!1) Controversy when it comes to playing basketball with hijab.The Coach was seeking safety, which is a very sensible concern to have, especially with pins used to secure the scarf. This is when Nazreen steps in, and designs a suitable playing attire that complies with both, Sadia's religious practice, and the safety regulations.Although such outfits already exit, I understand that many people have no access/ knowledge about it. Besides, safety regulations vary from one country to another, so that aspect of the plot was really appreciated. This was also inspired by real girls who created their own hijab sportswear, you can read the article about Aisha's story heredescription2) Some Regulators were ignorant.These things do happen, and I am glad to see that it was mentioned in the story.3) The Cover.4) No white hero savior bullshit.I do acknowledge the author's good intentions, but the story had a lot of issues. Not as bad as the ones in Blood and ink, though.Click here to read my review of Blood and InkI received a review copy in exchange with an honest review.

Sadia is a devout Muslim, one who practices modesty and wears a hijab. When her best friend Nazreen begins to remove her hijab, Sadia feels conflicted and a bit left out. When she makes the basketball team, she finds her modest clothes hindering and restrictive.This was a fairly quick read. I would have liked to see how religion affected her in other areas, other than the book being hyper focused on the hijab. For example, prayer and diet were briefly mentioned, but didn't seem very important. The concept of passion projects was an interesting concept, and I would have liked to read more about them. Overall, the book felt a bit rushed and could have used details aside from basketball and the hijab.

really good book for teens to read