When you first pick up Unimagined, the most striking thing about it is the cover. It features the author, very young and somewhat debonair-looking in a suit. It is an unusual photo. But, somehow, it perfectly suits the book.

Unimagined is a series of memories penned by Imran Ahmad. He chronicles his life thus far, from his poor childhood (he’s the son of Pakistani immigrants) to the awkwardness of adolescence. It is, at times, humorous and heartwarming. There are moments of pathos. More remarkable is its authenticity: the ordinary things we pay little attention to are illuminated.

Each chapter is given a one-word title. For example, “War”, Scotland”, “Separated”, hinting, obviously, at what that installment is about. And this book is about everything: unrequited love, the hardship of youth, not to mention the difficulties of trying to figure out what it means to be Pakistani when most of your schoolmates are Anglo. And what of being Muslim when everyone around you isn’t?

A nice illustration of this comes in the chapter titled “Spam”. Ahmad has thus far enjoyed his school dinners, including the Spam ones. Noticing that one of his classmates has a particular way of eating it, Ahmad decides to do the same at the next opportunity. However, when he tells his parents that he enjoyed cutting his Spam into little squares, they “confer together, then issue a commandment. ‘We don’t eat pork’.”

Ahmad continues: “I am disappointed, but I obey them. From then on, I don’t eat pork. I don’t know why, but I don’t do it.”

It’s those observations I found most truthful. I’ve no doubt many Muslims will relate to that youthful confusion, remembering the awkwardness of having to explain that something is haram (forbidden) because their parents told them so — but without really knowing why.

The narrative is delivered in present tense. Admittedly, this gets frustrating after a while, and is likely to put off those readers less interested in the “everyday” happenings of one man. But others won’t mind, and it is entertaining.

In any case, its selling point will be its topicality — a story about a Muslim upbringing in “the West”. And really, there aren’t many books out there without the obligatory veiled woman smacked on the cover. So Unimagined makes for a refreshing change. It’s not for everybody, but it’s worth a read.

Austrolabe has two copies of Unimagined to give away. To win a copy, send an email to info@austrolabe.com. First in, first served.

There have been many so-called Muslim/Arab-related memoirs and non-fiction narratives over the years and rarely do they seem authentic. Conversely, in Girls of Riyadh we have a fiction book that appears really to be a collection of the author Rajaa Alsanea’s personal experiences and anecdotes, so thoroughly crammed is it with just about every event that could happen to a Saudi girl of privilege. For a book that wishes to illuminate a hidden world, it’s not highly unique nor greatly important; but we do gain some insight into just how similar women are regardless of culture and circumstances, and we also get an overall idea of how Alsanea perceives Saudi Arabia’s class system and demography.

Perhaps Alsanea’s story is loaded with truth, or maybe I’m just reading too much into it. I suppose I should have prefaced all of this with an admission that I am fairly unfamiliar with how Saudi men and women live and conduct themselves. My knowledge and understanding of the area is limited to what I read in various media as well as stories of foreign compounds told to me by friends who lived in Saudi for several years (and, I should add, completely loved it). But then of course, being of Arab heritage myself, I can certainly recognise similarities across the Middle East in ideas, traditions, culture, and of course, religion.

I was curious, and that last element of religion attracted me to Girls, since there isn’t much out there for Muslim women who want to read stories to which they can relate (particularly one penned by a bona fide Muslim who likes her religion). Certainly, I enjoyed aspects of this book; some of the storylines were highly engaging and it has a cheekiness to it that works in the lighter moments. Moreover, I think there lies good intention behind it: Alsanea is sympathetic to her country, rather than dismissive. Clearly she advocates change for women, but she does so by balancing different approaches and ideas, rather than drenching the reader with feminist polemic.

However, it was an effort to get through the book, mainly because of the hackneyed storytelling: it’s clunky, and overall a victim of poor translation and a frustrating narrative style in which events and relationships are recounted with detailed explanation, with few actual moments being played out.

It works in some ways, since the premise of the story is a weekly email sent by an anonymous Saudi girl, who tells her readers the stories of four of her friends (whose names she’s changed to protect their privacy). There’s Lamees, Michelle, Gamrah and Sadeem, all university friends, whose lives take fairly divergent paths, but who nevertheless share similar experiences. Their stories burst with heartbreak and betrayal. Saudi men don’t emerge unscathed.

Every Friday after midday prayer, the “narrator” sends out an email recounting the trials and tribulations of her four friends, to which she receives an inordinate number of responses, some praising and thanking her for the weekly dose of drama, others chastising and cursing her: she’s considered a source of corruption and evil for talking about what happens behind closed doors — see no evil, hear no evil. Funnily enough, she notes, her fiercest critics don’t stop reading the emails despite their disapproval.

We soon learn that these girls live in a world filled with rules and game-playing, and are dominated by the men in their lives (often by choice). They go to university, but they constantly talk about marriage and obsess over their latest love interests. (The Saudi telephone lines run hot after midnight apparently). Every chapter begins with a quotation of some sort: Alsanea includes verses from the Qu’ran in some, while in others the syrup levels rise with excerpts from famous Arabic poems and love songs.

“Those who want us, our souls resent them
And those whom we want, fate refuses to give to us.” (Norah Al-Hawshan)

“If only I had known my very own ending, I wouldn’t have begun.” (Nizar Qabbani)

It’s all very poetic, but the quotations jar against the narrative. This is where I truly feel Alsanea’s book suffers: this isn’t literature, nor is it a funky sort of chick-lit. It hovers between bargain basement and something much worthier, and I suspect that the weak translation is primarily at fault. Further, stylistically, what probably works very well in Arabic completely fails the English version.

In any case, Girls isn’t as exotic and “taboo-breaking” as it’s billed to be. Forget the open discussion of sex and homosexuality that earlier reviews have promised you. It’s really just an average story that for the most part could be transported into another setting. I’m guessing that’s partly why some are so excited by it: Arab women actually experience what non-Arabs do and want to be “free”. It’s really all about wanting what we can’t have, not wanting what we can, humanity’s general inability to decipher their true needs as opposed to their desires, and naturally, it’s about love and whether or not it means very much in the real world.

The “ABC” of heartbreak and human folly. It’s not visceral. This is a “Saudi women and their lifestyles” primer.

If Muslims wish to be humanised more in fiction, I suppose Alsanea succeeds on this point. While her characterisations aren’t terribly strong, the girls’ experiences aren’t singular. Certainly their circumstances are different, and this is what will attract the non-Muslim reader particularly. But in all parts of the world there are men and women who experience what these girls have. I am sure we all know of couples, for example, who don’t make it to marriage because of elements beyond their control: expectations of family, differences in religion or ethnicity, and even differences in locale.

Alsanea says in her “Author’s note” that due to the success of her book in the Arab world, she is now considered “a member of Arab intellectual society”, and she takes this responsibility seriously. She will no doubt be subject to fierce criticism. In fact, when the anonymous email writer of her story asks her readers (following severe rebukes for her tales), “I only ask for a small space on the World Wide Web to tell my stories through. Is that too much to ask?”, you suspect Alsanea is the one really asking the question. It can be a preachy story, but she makes her case again and again as to why she has the right, and the need, to tell it.

You might remember one of the most outrageous (and let’s be honest, totally juicy) literary hoaxes of recent times. Norma Khouri, con artist and, quite possibly, sociopath, was exposed as a “fake” in a Sydney Morning Herald series by journalists Malcolm Knox and Caroline Overington in 2004.

The scandal? Khouri claimed she was escaping danger in her homeland of Jordan after her best friend and business partner, Dalia, a Muslim (Khouri is Christian), was the victim of an honour killing. Her wildly successful “memoir”, Forbidden Love, detailed Dalia’s alleged romance with a Christian man. It was published as non-fiction — a tad inconvenient for her publisher because the book was all a lie. Khouri was in fact a US resident, a wife and mother of two, and apparently under investigation by the FBI for fraud.

Enter Australian documentary-maker Anna Broinowski (she won an AFI for her documentary, Helen’s War). She confesses that she was quickly won over by Khouri’s charm when she met her. Convinced that Khouri was the victim of a media witch hunt, she set out to make a documentary that would prove the veracity of Khouri’s claims that Forbidden Love was not fiction.

The result is Forbidden Lie$, a highly engrossing, humorous and almost whimsical look at the scandal and those affected by it. This is not a film about honour killings. They are discussed, realistically and passionately, and we see that those working hard to eliminate the practice are but one casualty in this affair. But ultimately, this is the story of a con and its perpetrator.

In her search for the truth, Broinowski ventures to Amman with Khouri (and someone Khouri alleged was a “bodyguard”). Hoping to retrace the events, instead the documentary-maker is sent on one wild goose chase after another. Broinowski’s frustration is clear soon enough – but she’s equal parts exasperated and intrigued by her subject.

This is one aspect that is difficult to understand, although it’s no less intriguing. Perhaps you need to be face-to-face with Khouri to “get it” – to understand how she has gotten away with so much, and why so many people were so quick to believe in her and her story. Because really, arguably quite ordinary in looks and speech, Khouri’s not your standard femme fatale. But I suppose you can forget quite quickly that this isn’t Hollywood. It’s just an outrageous story spun by an experienced, deeply troubled con artist.

There are a number of voices in this film, allowing room for several perspectives on this increasingly bewildering journey. There’s Khouri’s rather unnerving (and estranged) Greek husband, who speaks with an accent, in husky tones — think Sopranos. Actually, scratch that. Think mafia spoof.

We also meet her one-time neighbour in Queensland’s Bribie Island (where Khouri sought ‘refuge’ following publication of the book). She took care of Khouri’s children when Khouri fled Australia after the scandal broke. Three months later, she had to send them to the US embassy, unable to cope with the financial burden it was placing upon her. Now, she says, she’s broke and still waiting for money Khouri owes her.

Add to this the journalists who broke the story, as well as the doctors, journalist and activists Broinowski speaks to in Jordan. They’re well-spoken, intelligent and funny – and they’re deeply offended by the factual inaccuracies littered throughout Forbidden Love, providing Broinowski with some priceless moments.

Broinowski has found interesting ways to tell the story too. For example, when dramatically recreating Dalia’s romance with her Christian boyfriend, Michael, the scenes are reminiscent of cheesy, B-grade soap operas – a reflection of Khouri’s hackneyed storytelling.

This is a deeply thought-provoking, frustrating and fascinating look at a hoax and its aftermath. The tagline reads “Con or artist? You decide”. I don’t think the answer to that is terribly difficult to find. The trick to this film is trying to decipher what truth, if any, exists beneath the lies.

Trailer

The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market will allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

In other words, the majority of people see Umberto Eco’s books as a status symbol of sorts and make the assumption that all have been read. On the other hand, a minority of people realise that a library is simply a tool for discovering things and therefore regardless of what one has already acquired in knowledge (the read books), there remains much more to be learned (the unread books). Whereas the shelves of read books may lead a person to become conceited and sure of themselves, the unread books help to keep the person humble.

When my younger brother was a resident doctor at the Hammersmith, he used to arrive on Edgeware road on a Sunday evening, (after a weekend on being on duty) and order a dozen or so pieces of deep fried chicken from the HFC (Halal Fried Chicken). He would then sit in his car, windows up and listen to Radio 4 whilst he scoffed it down. On one such occasion, a scantily dressed woman tapped on the window to ask him if he would like a good time. He replied that he was already having one, but nonetheless thanked her for her concern.

I mention this because it has nothing to do with the Patogh restaurant except that it too is situated on Edgeware road, is halal and can also be enjoyed in a family friendly, windows up fashion. Much of the rest of Edgeware road cannot. It is the home (or more correctly the habitat) of the Edgware Road Arab, a species introduced to me by an Egyptian colleague who said that the road was the final destination of every secular sleazy Arab whose ill gotten wealth (looted from Muslim lands) allowed him residency in west London. These men can be seen lounging about the street, undressing passersby with their eyes and smoking. Nocturnally they retire to the Whitley center where they do sedentary laps of the ground floor. The giveaway is that as the sun sets, they remain unmoved.

Despite this, the Patogh restaurant remains so good an eating destination for religious Muslims, that it is worth the trip. So confident am I of its quality, that if one does not fully enjoy it then it reflects badly on the patron rather than the chef. The fare is Iranian and consists in large part of various combinations of freshly grilled meat, rice, freshly baked bread (which is outstanding) and lots of butter to aid digestion and ward of malnutrition (the constant fear of the inactive western Muslim activist).

It is not a place that one can take ones spouse, or intended spouse as no good can come from watching ones betrothed or recently married, eating like a horse (or the reverse). I once saw a large sister come in and sit down, and nonchalantly drag an entire table towards her and demand to be fed. That image still haunts me in my most vulnerable moments. If I ever find myself campaigning for public action on any topic, it will be that men and women eat privately from each other.

The premises are tiny, even smaller upstairs and bookings are essential. The quality of the fare and its price make a mockery of the sad self-flagellation that the locals in the UK mistake for a national diet.

I’ve just finished reading Minaret by Sudanese author (and UK resident) Leila Aboulela. Her books are highly regarded, and Minaret was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. See an excellent in-depth review of Aboulela’s work published by Al-Ahram Weekly.

I’m not a huge fan of the stilted writing form that plagues so much “award-winning” literature, but aside from that, in terms of content, I closed Minaret and wasn’t sure what to think. Is this halal fiction? I wondered.

Let me just clarify that I am an avid reader of fiction in general. But is there such a thing as “halal fiction”? What is taboo in writing? Does the message have to be one that ultimately promotes Islam? If so, Minaret is successful on the last point.

Aboulela’s story sees her heroine, Najwa, take a mighty fall in life, only to seek – and find – salvation in Islam. She is surrounded by women who, despite their personal difficulties, are married contentedly to religious Muslim men. I know characters like the ones she portrays. While Aboulela portrays self-haters and those who reject Islam, she has room and care for those Muslims we never read about: the ones who love being Muslim, who, despite their faults and weaknesses, continue to love being Muslim. The book is, I think, essentially about the beauty of religion and realising that your only reliance is on Allah.

Having said that, the journey to this discovery involves sin and despair for Najwa, and much like reality in general, nothing in her life is neat and pure. We skip back and forth, but in the present, Najwa is unmarried, without family, in her late 30s and a maid for wealthy Arab families. She’s working for a lady, Lamya, and her daughter, and Lamya’s brother, Tamer, also occupies the home Najwa cleans everyday. Despite both being observant Muslims, Najwa and Tamer become complacent in their interaction and fall for each other. Aboulela doesn’t glorify it, but I think she does try to keep it realistic (although I didn’t find their courtship entirely believable).

Now, let’s agree that this sort of thing happens in reality. We can expect, and accept, that literature and fiction will generally have such content, but would Muslims generally view this as haram or inappropriate at the very least to read or portray? Or is it like poetry, which has been written and regarded for centuries as a suitable creative form? If there are no explicit scenes, and there is an overall message to it, would Muslims be receptive to it? Although, I do think her general audience, much like for other Muslim interest authors, are non Muslims.

I think fiction has a place in our lives, and it can often deliver worthy messages more adequately than non fiction would, particularly given that it is likely to attract more readers. But what are the limits of narration?

Surely the ultimate irony? The Trojan Horse of western cultural imperialism is the only one that feels the need to adhere to Islamic dietary principles in a predominately Muslim country.It speaks volumes about where the future of Islam will be.

Back to maccas. In a county that is poor and where the working class is resolutely observant only the secular middle classes can afford to eat at this place. The only other authentically halal places to eat were in the working class neighborhoods well away from our hotel. This was located on the waterfront next to the cathedral disguised as a Mosque.

So the Francophone middle class Casablancans turn up in droves on a Saturday lunch, ladies (not sisters) in backless sequin dresses with plunging necklines, men in safari suits, all plump and oily. Oddly in an American fast food place in an independent Arab Muslim nation on the African continent, the customers spoke to the staff in French.
When we arrived sweaty and disheveled in full Aussie tourist kit you can imagine the shock amongst the maccas set. It was impossible for them to process a Muslim women in hijab (which they see as stigmata of the illiterate poor) being able to afford lunch in MacDonald’s which is several months salary. So we sat down in the middle of proceedings and ordered ostentatiously off the menu in English.

Maccas food is quite tasty after a month of packet soup, but the novelty wears off very quickly. The burgers are so soft that one imagines that they can be sucked through a plastic drink straw. The chips were OK and they had Coke. In a pinch the paper napkins may also be edible.

However, it is essential that there be one genuine halal eating place in the foreshore at Casablanca, and western capitalism delivers it.

Jazak Allah khair to them

To sum up: Salvador Dali under the golden arches.

My feelings were confirmed when the next day I sat in front of the TV, flicking channels and finally settling on one of the many music stations taking the Arab world by storm. This one was called “Superstar”, not to be confused with the pan-Arab Idol show of the same name, and it ran music videos and concert clips 24/7, SMS messages of love and flirtation scrolling constantly across the bottom of the screen in gaudy technicolour. A family friend later confirmed that they were watching Mazzika, another of these music channels, more than Al-Jazeera. It all seemed very bizarre to me, but I concluded that in such times of trouble, no matter how misguided it seemed, music videos, with their cheeky storylines and buffed, good-looking and impossibly happy actors, obviously served as an antidote. Forget occupation and war — Nancy Ajram had a new album out.

I guess not even a familiarity with Western MTV culture would prepare me for the pop culture-saturated Middle East I visited and slightly recoiled from. I write this as a Muslim who has grown up in Australia, but with an enduring love of my heritage. I encountered a Middle East I wasn’t quite prepared for on many levels, but my understanding is layered and borne out of something entirely different to that of those women who visit the Arab world in search of tales of woe (think Geraldine Brooke’s Nine Parts of Desire and the more recent The Veiled Lands by Christina Hogan). And I think that’s partly why I don’t feel any richer for having read Muhajababes.

Meet Allegra Stratton, BBC journalist and twenty-something-year-old. She lets you know straight off the bat that she’s a bit of a firecracker. She’s had an argument with her roommate about the legitimacy of the US invasion of Iraq: roommate says it’s bad, Stratton thinks it’s good news. She soon realises that the war in Iraq is nothing short of a catastrophe and this somehow leads her to take some time off to explore the Middle East, no doubt in search of 10-year-olds wielding AK-47s. “I’d go there and see whether their young population — in all its puppy-fat enormity — was taking form as the profs would like it to. I wasn’t going to get into Iraq but I could go to countries near it”, she tells us importantly and in what is, as I eventually realise, her humour-lite style. There are funny moments, but she’s not a comedian.

Stratton’s “book of conversations” is essentially that: a record of her meetings with anyone who seemed her age whom she interviewed (youth being her basic criteria) during her trek through Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Dubai. What Stratton seems to have found is a bunch of pretentious, hippy-nostalgic luvvies, who, incidentally, are just as annoying as their Western counterparts.

To give you an idea of the flavour, consider some of the characters she covers: there’s Walid who wants to instigate revolution in Lebanon, despite having one of the less autocratic governments in that part of the world, and whom she describes as “a lucky mixture of the best bits of some of the world’s foxier men. What Mr Potato Head would look like if he had David Bowie’s frame, Bob Dylan’s head, shoulders and slouch, and Jimi Hendrix’s mania”. She also meets the Jordanian Daoud, an untalented (according to Stratton) artist of nude paintings who barely scrapes by and neglects his widowed mother in pursuit of bad art. Then there’s Darah, a sexually ambiguous woman who first introduces Stratton to the term ‘muhajababe’. It is Darah who, in gridlocked traffic, points out two girls who were “cigarello thin and Coco Chanel chic. Both wore black-nylon boot-cut hipster trousers and high heels, carried baguette handbags and wrapped around their heads were black sheer headscarves as tight as the rest of their outfits”.

Finally, meet the muhajababes. Music clip-influenced girls and the inspiration for the book, who appear to veil either because they have to or because Amr Khaled, an enormously popular preacher from Egypt, told them they should.

I think we’re meant to be overwhelmed and enlightened by this revelation. Yet none of this greatly surprised me, having seen countless young women on the street in Amman and even in Sydney adopt this approach for years, their bodies wrapped seductively in tight clothing, and their headscarves sitting loosely on their made-up faces, the scarf looking very much like a nun’s habit without the cap. Muhajababes are everywhere, yet Stratton suggests she’s discovered something extraordinary. In fact, this is one of the problems with her commentary: she writes as though everything is shocking and finds a great deal taxing when it comes to fatwas and culture. She certainly doesn’t seem to like Islam or Muslims very much, or perhaps it’s just a superior attitude of indifference with her seeming to roll her eyes impatiently every so often in response to all the silliness surrounding her.

Either way, Stratton’s Sesame Street approach to pan-Arab politics and lifestyle is frustrating; it’s all so unthinkable and peculiar to her, yet finding the Middle East’s losers or aspiring, dream-fuelled youth with a beef or two is hardly groundbreaking and I soon wondered how amazed we would be if an Arab woman went to the US and the UK and talked about all of the awful things she heard about.

Based on her conversations, Stratton zones in on two main figures: Amr Khaled, who she paints as little more than a puffed-up and ridiculous evangelical figure of influence for the starved masses who follow him, lemming-like, as he spreads the word. The other is wealthy Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who runs these 24/7 music channels through his Rotana satellite stations.

The two are in stark contrast with each other, yet their respective influences connect. Khaled leads the reformation of Islam with “personal trendy piety”, or what Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan) once called, Stratton notes, “air-conditioned Islam”, leading girls to hijab before they’re “ready”; Al-Waleed tells them what they should aspire to with his music clips. The result are muhajababes, girls who weakly attempt to reconcile the contradictory.

I took an obscene amount of notes as I read, yet none of it seems greatly significant now. Sufficed to say, both Khaled and Al-Waleed exert great amounts of influence and are making changes in their own success-driven ways.

Muhajababes essentially proves that greed and stupidity are alive and well in the Middle East, and excels in demonstrating the obvious: there are troubled areas, social misfits, a severe lack of freedom in general and a crucial diversity in attitudes, religiosity and culture. The Middle East is a melting pot of random things, and it is, not surprisingly, increasingly influenced by the West, Stratton observing that capitalists and major companies recognise the surge in palatable, Khaled-style piety and are using it for their own gain, Western-style.

Take, for example, Sami Yusuf, the outrageously popular semi-nasheed singer whose video clips grace TV screens inbetween Ajram and Amr Diab and who even promoted Coca Cola when he released his first album. He falls squarely into the “Khaledism” slot: a sexed-up religious approach. There are certainly interesting anecdotes and snippets of worthy commentary, but overall, it is a disappointing trip into the ordinary.

Meanwhile, Stratton doesn’t inject much of her own personality into the book, except to deliver cynical and, at times, snotty observations, all told in her oft-caustic style of overflowing prose. While refreshingly honest in her obnoxiousness, I couldn’t help but feel that, while greatly amused by the simpletons she met, Stratton not only seemed bored and unimpressed but was also perhaps questioning why she was even there.

She confesses, at one point, to being bored by the subject of hijab, saying she “wanted to find something a bit more fun”. And that’s the crux of it, because I am not convinced that this book, for all its magnanimous observations and “research”, is actually important. Rather, it seems little more than a young woman’s “project” to cash in on the Arab phenomenon; hers is a search for the obscure and try-hardish in the Arab world, and the result is a catalogue of the disheartened, disenfranchised youth who, not very uniquely, have social problems to deal with.

The main difference with the Western world’s social problems being, obviously, a lack of democracy in the background. (And after reading some of the contentions contained within this book, one could truly think democracy is a cure for the world’s ills). As Stratton comments at one point, when she has become weary, she thought “asking people about democracy in the Arab world was like talking about the weather, both because discussion of it was all around you, and because no one had any say in determining it”.

I envision how this book will be sold. An intriguing and eye-opening insight into the Middle East, with Stratton cast as a hip, daring Westerner ready to smash through the stereotypes with every click of her keyboard. Yet, it is Stratton herself who “casts” people, hoping to find an A, B, C of culture clash and establishment rebellion. The more interesting conversations never occur, and she herself confesses that the book she wrote is not the one she initially set out to capture. I can’t help but feel that there could have been much worthier tales to share and more deeply hidden experiences to uncover.

She ignores, for example, devout Muslims, depriving the book of any balance, focusing instead on self-haters with delusions of grandeur and a gripe or three. It’s all so hammy that even Stratton observes her struggle to not cringe when listening to one particular girl’s tale. These people offer their insight into why life is as it is for others, but more than anything they just complain and censure (for example, the girls not wearing hijab are quick to refer to muhajababes as the “sluttiest” girls around).

She does confirm that the Middle East has its own share of affected latte-sippers to contend with. But admittedly, the sippers may actually have something to truly fight for because as Stratton takes 280 pages to inform you, the Middle East is a hotbed of change and revolution right now. It’s just a shame you don’t close the book and want to go there yourself.