Malala and I are very close in age, so I assume that is why I didn’t know who she was until after she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (no, I didn’t even know why she had been nominated at the time). Learning about her campaign for girl’s education around the world intrigued me and I have wanted to read her autobiography ever since. It is somewhat unfortunate that I did not find the time until recently.
The book itself is structured in the form of a flashback. It begins just as Malala is shot on her school bus om the way home after exams. It then goes all the way back to when Malala’s father was a child and his struggle for his own education before going through the events that shaped not just Malala, but her family as a whole, and finishes during the family’s exile in Birmingham. There are some minor flashbacks within the initial one, but they are generally small and short memories.
As an American, the most important things this story brings is perspective. American history and news is generally never critical of the United States. But I Am Malala shows how the US government can be like making a deal with the devil and why Pakistan, as well as many other countries in the Middle East and surrounding area, distrust it. This does not excuse the Taliban for the violence they cause or the Pakistani government for their inability to protect Malala (and many others). But the best way to empathize with people and understand where they are coming from is to learn their history and see things from their perspective. I also got to know Malala much better than any third-person summary of an interview that I’ve read previously. It’s interesting to see our similarities and differences and think of what I was doing at the same age, just in a different country.
There are only two critiques I want to mention. First, there are sections that drag a bit because they are essentially lists. They vary from lists of accomplishments to people to hardships. As an audiobook listener, I was able to tune these out and never really lose the narrative. I also found the narration of the book to be a bit flat. While the narrator’s pitch and intonation fluctuate, they seem to move in the same cadence with every few sentences, making for a long and somewhat repetitive 10 hours.
Overall, I still enjoy the book and would recommend it to anyone looking for other viewpoints on the Taliban and conflicts in the middle east that are not 100% biased towards the United States.
Graphic: Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content
Moderate: Misogyny, Body horror, Confinement, Grief, Violence, War, Colonisation, Mass/school shootings, Blood, Islamophobia, Death, and Deportation
Minor: Animal death and Sexual harassment