A Map of Home

Idk why but I couldn’t find this interesting. Kinda boring and cliche, stopped reading because it couldn’t catch my interest.

This book is laugh-out-loud funny, while telling an entertaining and sometimes moving story of an Arab family's 17-year journey from America to Kuwait to Egypt and back to America again. During that time, its narrator Nidali grows from her arrival as a newborn at a hospital in Boston to her departure from home for college. Hers is a tightly-knit family, her father Palestinian and her mother Egyptian. From beginning to end there are stormy scenes between parents and between parents and children. Though their domestic life is interrupted by the Gulf War, requiring them to flee by car across Iraq to Jordan, global politics seem to have little effect on the real focus of their lives - being a family. Nidali is independent minded from an early age, a trait she inherits from both of her parents. She takes liberties whenever there is opportunity, resulting in nearly never-ending disputes with her father and conflicts with teachers. Meanwhile, her mother demands to be her own person, as well, and both suffer more than their share of abuse for the privilege of doing exactly what they please. Father may know best but he seldom gets his way. There's plenty of trash talk and unembarrassed references to sex, which may put off readers accustomed to more idealistic portrayals of family life, but discord seems to be the tie that binds in this bittersweet story. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

An absolutely delightful book that takes you from Boston to Kuwait to Egypt and finally settles in Texas. The author weaves a very interesting tale of Nidali Ammar and her eccentric family. Nidali is a girl born to a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother. Unlike many books that I have read about the Middle East, Nidali's parents do not want her to marry young rather her father stresses education almost above everything else. He wants her to be a famous professor who can hold her own against any man. Her father's ambition feels like he is trying to live vicariously through her and since her younger brother shows early on that he is not a book worm her father rationalizes his obsession. Her father, Waheed, was forced to leave Palestine because of a war and he moved to Egypt where he got his university degree in Architecture/Engineering. But it is clear that his chosen career would most likely have been different had he been able to grow up in his own country, free of the turmoil of war. With this in mind, he concerntrates his efforts on making his daughter into all that he wished he had been. The story of the meeting and courtship of Nidali's parents is in stark contrast to the present that Nidali and her brother are forced to inhabit. Her parents fight often and use choice langauge in private and in front of their children. Her father is physically violent both to his wife and children. Yet despite his volatile temper, you find it a bit hard to hate him, I certainly did not like him but I think that the way that the story is crafted makes you acknowledge his numerous faults without fully detesting him. Her mother is somewhat odd but is essentially a good and feisty soul who feels trapped by the situations she finds herself in. On Nidali's thirteenth birthday, Sadaam Hussein attacks Kuwait which is Nidali's residence at the time. She and her family are forced to flee to Egypt and eventually end up in Texas where he father finds a job. Again she trys to find where she fits in and school becomes her refuge as it had been all her life. But again her father will not let her be her own person and they fight over her choices. Its almost impossible not to love Nidali. She is such a lovely young lady. Her observations about life are sometimes rib achingly funny. But even in these moments of hilarity, one is gleaning a picture of her world. A world that is frought with loneliness, displacement, loss and the search for an identity that is independent of your parents and culture, whilst still loving one's parents and culture. This book is very reminiscent of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and it articulates many similar themes. I could have done without some of the crass and vulgar language. Also reading about a thirteen year old masturbating was certainly not a highlight of my day. But all in all I would absolutely recommend this book.

I love this book. It is a great example, along with Junot Diaz's writing, of how the voice of a narrator can make you fall in love with a character and what she might have to say before the story really even begins. It is a bildungsroman, starring Nidali, a spunky charismatic firecracker of a girl, who is born in America, grows up in Kuwait and then after war displaces her, moves to Egypt, and then after more difficulties moves to Texas. I can't tell you how many times this book had me laughing my ass off. The humor is informed by sadness and struggle (in Korean we call that feeling "han"-and not incidentally, Nidali's very name means "struggle") and I found myself identifying SO much with Nidali. The humor is effective because it has layers of meaning, because we know what it is trying to deflect, and because it drives us forward in a narrative that is, in the end, unflinching in its honesty. And despite all the laughing throughout my reading (there are sooo many killer lines in this book that sometimes I wondered if Randa was guided by Margaret Cho's spirit), in the end, I burst into tears. "Stop crying, stop crying!" my husband playfully admonished me, as I closed the book.

There is so much about this book I related to--from the sexy shyness and confusion of the teenage Nidali (though I didn't have to worry about getting beaten for kissing a boy) to the loyalty to her family, to the feelings of otherness, I felt like I knew this girl. The prose is gorgeous and sparkling, and very, very funny. Insights into Palestinian culture and history, the first Gulf war, and growing up in a Muslim family were new to me, though questions of identity, love of one's culture, and the confusion of growing up were very familiar. I read this book in just a few short days, commuting to work and at home in the evening. It is a fast, engaging read, with lots to ponder. I am so glad that I was able to read a book about Muslim culture that gave me a new understanding of the Middle East and of Muslims. I think this book is definitely what America needs to read right now. I read Towelhead when it came out, which has some similarities (the time, the Gulf War, and the setting, Texas), but this book is just so much more mesmerizing and genuine. Parts of the narrative also reminded me of Satrapi's Persepolis, and the way that she relates the duality of loving one's culture and history while simultaneously being frustrated by its government and dictates. A book full of love, humor, and insight. I loved it.