Reviews tagging 'Islamophobia'

An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh Mafi

64 reviews

hmmitsvenus's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Read for the 2024 Asian Readathon. Prompt 1: Read a book written by an Asian author.

An Emotion of Great Delight was a wonderful exploration into the life of one Muslim teen living in a post-9/11 world, while navigating complicated family relationships, friendships, society and love.

I loved the writing in this book. It was so beautiful and atmospheric, and the writing flowed really well, so I breezed through this book super easily and I really understood Shadi's feelings. I especially loved the descriptions of Shadi and her family's grief and sadness; sad and gut-wrenching, just my favourite. I also really loved the explorations into the topics of complicated family relationships and religion in this book. It was interesting. And the romance! Super cute. I'm not normally a huge fan of romance, but I ate this one up.

In all honesty, though, I did think that this book was too short. Despite its rather limited length, this book tries to tackle a lot of very complicated topics, which I think could have been done better if only this book was a little bit longer and we'd gone into more detail. The ending was also incredibly abrupt and open-ended; there was really no clear resolution. 

Even so, I think this book still deserves four stars simply because of how much I enjoyed it. I really loved the writing. I had fun reading this book; plain and simple.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Islamophobia

brookey8888's review

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I enjoyed this, but I think that to much was happening and none of it get wrapped up or flushed out. I appreciate the topics discussed in this, all of them being hard and difficult conversations, but half of them weren’t even concluded. This also just felt off to me? I’m not Muslim so I can’t speak on the 
Representation And the some of the  topics discussed, but it just didn’t seem All that well done to me. I know the author is Muslim so maybe that’s her experience, but read reviews from Muslim readers.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Islamophobia, Car accident, Grief, Self harm, Religious bigotry, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Suicide attempt, Racism, and Suicidal thoughts

whomever_0's review

emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.5

I didn't like how abrupt the ending felt. It really felt like nothing was really resolved.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Islamophobia

sbbailey's review

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

i have a lot of thoughts about this book, on the one hand it’s half baked until about 75% but then it still doesn’t make complete sense. on the other hand i see what the author was trying to do here, it was very poetic, in a way. but some authors aren’t equipped to write true poetic work. i get what mafi was trying to do with this book. it didn’t make sense until the end because it wasn’t supposed to the main characters thoughts were so jumbled because of GREIF, mafi just didn’t assemble it correctly. it had great potential, but the potential wasn’t met. she wrote this book with the write concept for the times, but the writing just doesn’t do it justice. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Islamophobia, Child death, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Hate crime

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

emotional fast-paced

4.0

As a former Muslim who grew up during 9/11 and post 9/11, this book def hit some feelings. Def look up content/trigger warnings tho. There is at least brief mentions of a few different things.
Although I didn't love the romance aspect and would've loved to see more of Noah, I thoroughly enjoyed this book on family, grief, and struggles of being Muslim in a country that thinks you are the personification of pure evil. I was a little confused at the beginning with the switching of time a few times throughout the book tho.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Grief, Racism, Xenophobia, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Self harm, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Car accident

wrinnola's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Self harm, Xenophobia, Grief, Islamophobia, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Death, Child death, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Car accident, Racism, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Blood, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Police brutality

teah_jilly's review

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Self harm

Minor: Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Islamophobia, Death, and Car accident

kaitray16's review

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Islamophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Self harm, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

_savannahreads_'s review

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Death, Racism, Car accident, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, and Islamophobia

ambi_reads's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Racial slurs, Panic attacks/disorders, Islamophobia, Grief, Emotional abuse, and Death