2021 Reading Challenge: A book by a Muslim American Author

The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Two Muslin immigrants, from different backgrounds and lift experiences find their lives intertwining in ways that make them both learn about themselves, family and faith.

Anvar moved with his family, from Pakistan, to San Francisco when he was young. His Mother, a very devout Muslim, and his brother ("the perfect Muslim son") actually settle in better than Anvar and his father. Anvar find was to constantly rebel against familial and cultural expectations. And even when he does "what's proper and correct" he seems to fail at it. He became a lawyer, defending a famous "suspected terrorist" and even that didn't go right. He finds himself struggling even more when he learns that his brother has become engaged to Anvar's ex-girlfriend (a relationship they kept secret because of culture).

Safwa is a young woman, raised in Iraq during Desert Storm. She too feels like she cannot do anything right. Her mother dies of cancer, kept secret until it was unable to be hidden. Safwa feels it's her fault. Her brother contracts a blood disease and is left in her care when her father is taken by American Forces for interrogation. Unfortunately she's forced to run from bombings, leaving her brother behind. Unable to get medical care, he dies and of course when her father is freed, he blames Safwa for her brother's death.

Needing to get out of Iraq, Safwa makes a deal with a man who agrees to get her and her father out under fake papers, if she agrees to marry him. Fearing there is no other way, she agrees and the three of them escape Iraq and sneak across the Mexican border into the US and end up in San Francisco.

Safwa and Anvar become friends and through each other find ways to escape the expected and learn about healing, family and themselves.

*****

I liked this book a great deal. But to be honest, I think a LOT of that is due to the reading of Pej Vahdat and Hend Ayoub. I'm not sure if I would have liked it as much or gone through the book as fast without them.



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