A review by ortizzyy
We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib

emotional hopeful informative inspiring fast-paced

4.25

I took a break from memoirs from a while because the ones I'd read all felt "too whiny"-- which I realize may sound a bit harsh or unfair since these are someone's lived experiences. I don't mean to invalidate that, but that is just how I have found many memoirs to be lately. I was worried I may have the same complaint of this book, but thankfully I did not. 

I enjoyed hearing about Samra's childhood, their coming-of-age and their journey to embrace their queerness. They also talked about exploring what it means to be Queer and Muslim and how that left them feeling like an outsider even in queer spaces.  It looks like since this book was published they now use different pronouns. In the book they use she/her pronouns. I really liked this book, my only issue is that I felt certain topics were glossed over, or there were large gaps between events. 

Samra talks about meeting Abi and Megan and becoming better friends and I wish there was a bit more detail there. There are large spans of time that are barely touched on. For example, the time between
when she ran away, married Peter and reunited with their parents.
Because of this lack of detail, I found it difficult to tell how much time was passing between events. 

My craving for more detail speaks to how much I enjoyed their writing and hearing about their experiences.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings