Overall, I liked this book. It is reminds me of a Thousand Splendid Suns but for a younger audience. I appreciated that the author took the time at the end of the book to explain the background for her story, which stemmed from a "report issued by Afghanistan's department of orphanages". Additionally, she acknowledged the women who helped her vet the story for accuracy and cultural authenticity, who are from Kabul and Khandahar. There is an excellent glossary at the end, which I wish I ahd thought to look for early on.

This book also strikes me as enabling text in accordance with Dr. Alfred Tatum's work. While it is not a book tailored towards lives of African American teenage males, his population of interest, this story is an excellent example of a book which shows a marginalized main character in the midst of a seemingly hopeless situation able to pull through as the result of self-reliance, dogged perseverance, good decision making and education.

The main character Jameela is not without fault and is not always completely likeable, which endeared me to her all the more. I believe she is a character with whom American children could connect because while she is living a life completely different from the experiences of most American children, she deals with loss, love, and difficult friendships, common human experiences. For example, upon arriving in the orphanage, she struggles with the power structure which exists in the friendships amongst the other orphans. While she eventually earns her place among the other orphans through her actions, she is not perfect. Some books would make her automatically the nicest girl who is kind to everyone, but Jameela is actually still unkind to a young orphan girl named Arwa. I found this to be a more realistic portrayal of adolescent relationships.

This book is heavy, touching on drug abuse, war, adult drinking, religion, personal identity and more. None of it is glorified, and I believe for an interested upper middle school age student or lower high school student, this would be an excellent selection. I also see it working as part of a reading ladder related to either contemporary Afghanistan, Muslim related fiction, or women around the world. Since it is such a thick text with many layers for discussion, I also see its potential for a literature circle book.

***Added***

After some additional thought, another thing I like about this book is how it dealt with femininity in the Arab world. Sometimes when I read books about cultures different than my own, I feel that authors (particularly American authors writing about global cultures) are treating these cultures and communities with respect until there is something about that culture which offends or displeases them. I enjoyed the passages where Jameela discussed her wearing of the Chadri (or Burka) because the author treated the issue with a deep respect for the character's culture, rather than treating it as a negative or backward characteristic of a culture which is in need of remedy. Of course, as Ms. Khan is Pakistani (not Afghan as is her main character), her cultural background may have made it easier for her to portray this cultural component with this sort of deep respect rather than respect "to a point". I am not an expert on books with Muslim themes, but my limited experience as well as my knowledge related to multicultural and global literature made me feel that Ms. Khan did an excellent job of writing clearly about an issue which can spark heated conversations in the Western World.