A review by rmdange
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

I’ve contemplated reading this book ever since my mother told me about a Pakistani girl my age being shot in the head by the Taliban and, somehow, eking her way to a miraculous recovery. Through I Am Malala, the author reclaims her own story, providing a clarity and comprehensiveness untouched by the frantic news reports of the time. Part I is rather slow and tedious, as she painstakingly retraces her familial ancestry and the political history of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Though this provides necessary context (and is important and impressive as a political chronicle), her habit of mentioning so many one-off players, as if out of compulsion to include their names and brief sketches of their stories, detracts from the focus and flow of her narrative. Once the Taliban come into the picture, in Part II, the book’s pace certainly picks up, becoming steadily more riveting throughout. Overall, I Am Malala is an impactful literary debut telling a very necessary story. The author’s age (15 years) is strikingly evident in the writing, and the plentiful passages about God’s greatness are a little much for me (one would have sufficed). I have to wonder how she would have written it differently – if at all – twelve years later.
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