A Map of Home: A Novel

by Randa Jarrar

From America to the Middle East and back again— the sparkling story of one girl’s childhood, by an exciting new voice in literary fiction

In this fresh, funny, and fearless debut novel, Randa Jarrar chronicles the coming-of-age of Nidali, one of the most unique and irrepressible narrators in contemporary fiction. Born in 1970s Boston to an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, the rebellious Nidali—whose name is a feminization of the word “struggle”—soon moves to a very different life in Kuwait. There the family leads a mildly eccentric middle-class existence until the Iraqi invasion drives them first to Egypt and then to Texas. This critically acclaimed debut novel is set to capture the hearts of everyone who has ever wondered what their own map of home might look like.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Middle East, Young Adult, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Randa Jarrar is a Palestinian-American author, translator, performer, and professor.

Jarrar's first novel, the coming-of-age story A Map of Home (2008), won her the Hopwood Award, and an Arab American Book Award. Since then she has published short stories, essays in a number of anthologies and collections as well as her short story collection, Him, Me, Muhammad Ali (2016), and her memoir, Love Is an Ex-Country (2021).

Jarrar was born in 1978 in Chicago, to an Egyptian mother and a Palestinian father. She grew up in Kuwait and Egypt. After the Gulf War in 1991, she and her family returned to the United States, living in the New York area.

Jarrar studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College, receiving an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan.


She is a creative writing professor at California State University. Of her writing, author and critic Mat Johnson has said “Randa Jarrar’s prose is bold and luscious and makes the darkly comic seem light."

Reviews

[Susan Abulhawa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Palestinian coming of age story in Kuwait. Beautifully written, touching, sweet, honest, and very human. I loved every minute I spent reading it.

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, charming, and with the brutal honesty unique to a child, A Map of Home is an original and biting narrative on the journeys we take, the homes we make for ourselves. Sarcastic, witty, and angsty Nidali navigates war, familial tension, and sexual awakening as she relocates from Kuwait to Egypt to Texas; her voice is natural and charismatic, both authentic and larger than life. Perceptive and hilariously relatable, this is a wonderfully effective coming of age story.

[Saleh MoonWalker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Onvan : A Map of Home - Nevisande : Randa Jarrar - ISBN : 1590512723 - ISBN13 : 9781590512722 - Dar 304 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2008

[Karima · Rating 4 out of 5]

I REALLY enjoyed this book. It is HONEST and RAW and RIPE. Love the expletives the characters use like:
"May the caves they live in be their eternal dwellings!"
"Sons of Whores!"
and some other good ones that I am too embarrassed to write.
The dialogue is like bullets flying:
When 12 year old Nidali (the narrator of this story)asks her mother for another glass of water, her mother replies,"Drink your spit."
When the family is forced to leave Kuwait(1990) because it has been invaded by Iraq, Nidali writes a letter to Saddam Hussein. Here's part of it:
Dear Mr. Saddam Hussein,
I am in my parents' falling-apart car, and we are crossing your beautiful country, fleeing from your ugly army. (and on and on.......ending with)
I wish you nothing less than violent anus-expansion via rocket ships launched from close proximity, and I hope that you too will be expelled from your home and forever cut off from your crush (Nidali had a newly acquired boyfriend) and sentenced by almighty Allah to eternity in the final circle of hell where you will forever make out with your left hand, the skin of which will burn off and re-grow for all of eternity.
Yours sincerely,
N.A.

Get the picture? This is no Ann of Green Gables!

Read this book. It will have you squirming in your seat and laughing out loud.

[b borne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that, in my darkest moments, the fight for more representation in literature (especially those books that could pass as YA/are directed at young adults) seems futile to me.

Then I read a book like A Map of Home .

While it's important to note that this book is one of the first I've read with a young bi Arab-American woman at the center of it's narrative, I have to say that what really resonated with me were the geographies that Nidali inhabited at some point or another throughout the novel. It's hard - probably impossible, or maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough - to find coming-of-age novels about young girls who grew up in the Gulf, much less young lesbian/bi girls who did so. I think this is the first time I've been able to so deeply relate to a fictional character's upbringing. Nidali's relationship with her parents was also so beautifully represented, with all the nuance and sensitivity I could've ever hoped for. There are also thematic elements that pleasantly reminded me of the stuff I came across - and really enjoyed - while reading Ananya's Bless Me, Ultima . This book definitely pulled me out of a dark moment. I only wish I had found it when I was younger. It might've made all the difference in the world.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading C(h)ristine's glowing review of this book, I feel like a grinch for having given it only two stars, but I am going to stand by my rating.

First, the good stuff: this book is a female coming-of-age novel (a genre I'm especially interested in, though maybe my special interest leads me to be unfairly extra-demanding of them), is definitely competently written, and it maintains a pretty standard tone throughout; that is, there aren't any wildly bad parts or ill-conceived characters or lame plot turns or anything like that. And it is funny. Occasionally the humor seems a little forced, as when 13-year-old Nidali writes in an open letter to Saddam Hussein, who has just invaded her country, "although I admire your sense of fashion, green is SO last season." But that's just one example; there were also real smiles and a few giggles in here for me.

Now, let me try to put my finger on the other stuff. I found the main character to be smart, spunky, sassy, and...hard to engage with. She has interesting daydreams, and notices interesting things about other people, but there's some kind of critical mass or energy that, for me, the book doesn't quite reach. Kuwait is taken over, but Nidali's family gets away pretty easily. Nidali's father has a violent temper, but the family never goes totally dysfunctional. This non-drama drama may be more like life than much fiction, but it didn't satisfy my readerly desire for excitement and direction.

I'm not sure, but I think that my unease may have something to do with the fact that the main character has so much in common, biographically, with the author. Randa Jarrar, like Nidali, was born in the US, raised in Kuwait and then Egypt, and moved with her family to the US in her teens. Could this have been a memoir? Certain things are different; for example, Nidali has only one sibling, while Jarrar has two. I know that biographical speculation about an author is unfashionable, and in some ways dangerous, but in a case like this (and in a literary climate where memoir is still huge), it's hard not to wonder how true to life the story is. I found myself imagining that I'd have been happier if Jarrar had taken one of two alternative routes: either given us a straight memoir, in which case I would have been impressed with her courage to reveal so much of herself, or fictionalized the book more, in which case there could have been more incident, some point at which I felt worried about Nidali or her family's physical safety or emotional fate.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

(UPDATE, DECEMBER 2008: I heard today from this book's author, Randa Jarrar, who wanted to make a clarification: that not all of her three college degrees are related to writing, but rather with one being in Middle Eastern Studies and a second in the general Liberal Arts. My apologies for the error.)

(Many thanks to Goodreads.com member Katherine Sharpe, for sending me her copy of this book so I could review it; and yes, I know, I still owe you a book in return! I know, I know!)

It's undeniable at this point, the rapidly growing interest among Western audiences right now for creative, character-based fiction from the Middle East; this is one of the most important things about the arts in general, after all, the thing that's made the arts so important to humans throughout history, is that it's how many of us process and understand topics we don't know much about, complicated topics that are sometimes difficult for us to wrap our minds around. Because of America's involvement there over the last decade, because of the rise of this region as the next minor world power, it's made Westerners and especially Americans more and more curious about what seems to us to be a very mysterious place; and rather than dusty history books and manipulative corporate news reports, many people find the creative projects from a region to be the best aid for getting a fair, balanced, humanistic handle over it all. But there's also a problem with this as we all know, that when a subject in the arts suddenly becomes "hot," it leads not just to a few brilliant projects finally getting the attention they deserve, but a whole pile of badly-done knockoffs too, the literal definition of "riding someone's coattails." Let's not forget, after all, the slew of terrible "blog books" that came out around five years ago; and the slew of terrible slam-poetry compilations that came out in the '90s; and the slew of terrible pseudo-macho coke-snorting yuppie thrillers that came out in the '80s. Oh Lord, let's not forget.

Today's book, in fact, is a very good example of what I'm talking about, Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home: because some people will see this as a funny, illuminating book that takes pains to show off all the cultural similarities between struggling families in both the West and East, and will love the book for it; while others will see it as a pretty typical coming-of-age tale that just happens to benefit from the momentary hotness of its setting, a tale that has some basic problems on top of everything else, and will not like the book very much for it. And both these people are right, frankly; when all is said and done, it is ultimately a literary debut that is merely slightly above inconsequential, undeniably benefiting commercially these days from its unique outlook, essentially a foot in the arts-industry door that is Jarrar's to either improve upon or waste with her next novel. What will happen in the future is anyone's guess, of course; but the book is certainly the sign of a writer you should at least pay attention to, who at least has the potential to really astound us all just a little bit down the road, or just as easily become a forgotten one-hit-wonder.

As mentioned, it's basically a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale, set in various locales around the Middle East and the US, as Jarrar's proud middle-class family is forced to run away from one war after the next; and this is why I say that Jarrar has the potential at this point to become an obscure one-hit-wonder, because history is littered now with people who had exactly one great coming-of-age novel in them, but were never able to convert these skills into writing great original stories out of whole-cloth. And that's because the real events of our late childhoods just naturally follow a three-act structure nicely on their own; there's a certain pattern and rhythm to almost everyone's late teens, certain "beats" in life that we all hit, making stories about such events instantly relatable by the mere act of writing them down. No matter where on the planet you live or when in history, if you're a 13-year-old girl you're simply going to have to deal with your first period at some point or another; and since so many of these experiences in real life turn out to be comically traumatic, writing a story about your own comical trauma can very quickly bond you to your audience.

And now, like I said, add what seems to many Westerners like the very exotic nature of the Middle East; because our hero Nidali happens to be dealing with her own puberty right in the middle of the various regional wars over there in the 1990s, a Palestinian whose family first got run out of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, then were told not to come back after the Gulf War was over, traveling through various places like Iraq and Egypt until finally landing in the middle of white-trash Texas. And let's face it, that for many readers, this is all they need to make such a book a worthwhile read -- a story they can relate to, full of interesting references to confusing events and places they're always seeing mentioned in the news, a way to better understand what's going on over there precisely by filtering it through the family-drama tropes they're already used to. But see, this is where A Map of Home first starts having problems too, because Jarrar makes some of these stories just too improbably twee and precious, as if she was already picturing the high-budget award-winning Hollywood adaptation that would soon be following. I mean, really, an angry letter to Hussein about how his war is interrupting her chances to get to third base with her teenage boyfriend? Really? This manuscript is filled with such cutesy NPR-worthy anecdotes, which will simply make some people react with Oprahesque delight and some with jaded disgust.

Unfortunately, though, the biggest problem with A Map of Home is its uneven tone as it nears the end; to be precise, part 3 of the book feels like it was the first section actually written, and that it was written specifically as a series of artsy short stories for some academic writing program, stories that are stuffy and pretentious and with a veritable checklist of Iowa-Workshop-type problems. (Bad joke about misconstruing Ed McMahon's "you could already be a winner" sweepstakes letter as real? Check! Creepy middle-aged men constantly throwing themselves at overweight immigrant teens? Check! Surprisingly sophisticated understanding of postmodern feminist theory? Check! Entire chapter written in second-person for no particular reason at all? Check! Main character who wants to study writing when she goes off to college? Oh, for f-ck's sake, CHECK CHECK CHECK!) As so that ironically makes the book flow in the opposite way most do; that is, it's at its most casual and assured at the beginning, its most labored and unsure at the end, sadly leaving a bad taste in the mouth after finishing instead of sending us off on a high note.

That's ultimately why I say that Jarrar's future as a writer is now in her hands, because this is neither a spectacularly great book nor spectacularly awful; it's more of a blank slate than anything else, something that merely proves that she can write, and that guarantees she'll get at least one more chance to publish one of these things. What will Jarrar do with this opportunity? Will she transcend the hacky territory of autobiographical coming-of-age fiction next time, shrug off the terrible academic literary gimmicks she's picked up during the process of getting her three freaking writing degrees? Or will she find herself simply with not much creative juice left at all, now that she's already expelled this mostly true story from her system? Whatever the case, A Map of Home is a book I cautiously recommend today; if you're the type that happens to be into these subjects, you'll definitely want to check it out, while if you're ever caught yourself saying that you never want to read another Judy Blume story again for the rest of your life, you may want to give today's title a pass.

Out of 10: 8.0

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And this is the delegation I went to America with: we were in Washington, and this was in the sixties, the middle of the civil rights movement there—you know about that? What do they teach you in those schools, those colonial schools?—in the heat of the movement, and the wafd is eating dinner at the restaurant in DC and the maitre d' tells us, 'Colors sit over there.' Just like that, 'No colors here.'" Geddo did a funny American impression. "We tell him, 'We are Egyptians. We are eating our chicken.' He kept saying 'colors over there.' We refused to get up. Here is a picture of us all outside the restaurant."
They still had their napkins in their shirts.

I was watching a video today that had a commentator who I can usually rely on for a near constant level of human decency, but in this case, he forcibly reminded me of his cishet white boy status by criticizing a video game for, unlike its original progenitor, drastically diverging from a, even this far into the 21st c., still borderline ubiquitous route of an Anglo cishet white boy wonderland by filling up the worldbuilding with linguistic accents and cultural intonations, culminating in the main character being explicitly rendered as a black woman. As if that were a flaw in the game design, rather than a lack in his own culturally competent sympathy. Now, I've grown out of my tendency to take on works of a certain 'diverse' sort, no questions asked, in this neoliberal hellscape of ours that thinks that people willingly offering themselves in cookie-cuttered portions to the US publishing complex is 'progress', but I still keep an eye out for those sorts of books that would be glibly described as 'nonexistent' by many a mainstream personnel that thinks themselves a well connected commentator on the status of literature of past, present, and future. In this case, if someone can name another transcontinental künstlerroman of a queer woman that is not only as familiar with Western Asia, Northern Africa, the "Middle East", and Palestine as it is with the US, but was also published before 2010, I'll eat my hat. If there is indeed one, or several, I would hope that it is/they are as witty, creative, compassionate, honest, whip smart, strong, bold, and as capable of taking on the task of describing the nightlife of Kuwait as the neighborhood dynamics of the mobile homes of Texas as this work is. It's not going to satisfy the likes of those kinds of readers who see red whenever the parent "disciplining" their child isn't white, or those who pretend that all those human beings under the age of 18 (or 13) live PG-13 lives and lose their shit when educational policies and other realities of life acknowledge otherwise, but I'm the type who thrives on literature that so obviously comes from a place of credibility, and this right here is the good shit.

Not all queer comings of artistic age involving women of color are alike, so the fact that this book strongly reminded me of Coffee Will Make You Black probably has more to do with my not engaging with this kind of material often enough than anything else. Still, that is also a work that I really liked for its ability to tackle the kind of intersectional subject material that most writers run and hide from, even those who are supposedly writing for adults, aka the kinds of readers who are supposed to be able to take anything and everything in what they choose (and consent to) read. This particular work takes on such themes such as military invasions, domestic abuse, oil dictatorships, the Nakba, teenage sexual assault, and racialized misogyny, so one could be forgiven for being rather hesitant to get into it all without bigotry having anything to do with it. However, these threads are so skillfully interwoven amongst the tale of a strong, loving, and traumatized daughter living amidst a strong, loving, and traumatized family who is systematically displaced from postcolonial coastlines to settler state lands that it is more than possible to enjoy the escapades of the characters more often than not, as well as get a great heaping dose of learning about areas that the typical US "American" is incapable of finding on a map. All the while, the aforementioned daughter explores her intellectual capacities as well as her sexual, and when the work finally closes, it does so at the cusp of the foreign territory of college life, and I imagine I'm not the only one who is disappointed that there isn't a sequel. All in all, this is exactly what I look for when I deign to delve into 21st century writing, and while it's a shame I waited this long, finally getting to this was certainly a great way to ring in Pride Month 2021.

This isn't a work that has any easy conclusions, or indeed many answers at all for the serious issues it touches upon, but considering how closely the main character's trajectory matches the author's, I'd probably stumble over one or more of these in the author's other writing, fiction and otherwise. Considering how one of the top reviews of Jarrar's recent memoir is nothing more than a bigoted armchair doctor/puritan binge rant, I'm feeling the urge to seek it out and see for myself what her nonfiction writing is like for a reader who doesn't confuse eugenics with health. With any hope, it'll be the start of a fruitful reader/writer relationship that I'm rarely able to cultivate with authors who are both still alive and still composing, as I refuse to believe Jarrar is the type to put out a single novel, a single short story collection, a single memoir, and then leave it at that forevermore. Still, given my rather negligent levels of engagement when it comes to books such at this, Jarrar could probably take another ten years to write something without my running out of reading material of hers, so it'll probably work out. In the meantime, I recommend this to anyone who is sincerely interested in either exploring some aspect of themselves or developing a more humanized view of those impacted by such. This is a work that is touching as it is ribald, heartbreaking as it is hilarious, and what it lacks in stolid comfort zones it more than makes up for in exuberant vibrancy. All in all, if the average work of the 21st c. was like this, I'd stick around longer.

First my land, now my Guccis! Goddamn it.

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was as delightful as it was quietly harrowing. Jarrar’s unique protagonist and dry wit, combined with a keen sense of history and its role in strong plotting, serve readers well; she manages to capture the profound sorrow and loss attendant to displacement and Palestinian identity, yet embrace consistently the irreverence of a child on the cusp of self-understanding, and willing to fuck shit up in the meantime.

[Jalilah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an absolutely delightful book! Although the subject matter is serious, the overall feeling is light with lots of funny moments to balance out the sad. I was engaged from beginning to end!
I first read about Randa Jarrar because her article "Why I can't stand white belly dancers" in Salon magazine caused quite a stir. While she makes many very valid points in the article, I don't agree with everything. I do respect her opinion, however that's beside the point! It's too bad this article overshadows her writing because she's great! I hope she writes more novels because I will read all of them!

[Knotty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am in love with this book! I know I could have finished it in a few days, but I really wanted to read it slowly and enjoy it. I picked this book up at our book sale last year, and I was in the mood for something honest and ripe. Wow, did I find it in this novel. Nidali Ammar is born to an Egyptian mother and Palestinian father in the great city of Boston in the 1970s. The first chapter was hilarious as Nidali's father is convinced he has sired a son and decides to name the baby "My Struggle," which is a terrible name for a girl as the mother screams in Arabic throughout the halls of the hospital. Nidali coming from two worlds considers herself "half-and-half," which I definitely related to. At an early age, her parents move to Kuwait where Nidali eventually gets a baby brother and experiences the harsh reality of the Gulf War, which begins on her thirteenth birthday. With Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army invading, Nidali's family must flee to Egypt where Nidali is now looking for a home within her mother's country. Nidali's family eventually makes their last move to Texas once she is in high school, and all hell breaks loose with her want to grow up and be her own woman or live the life her overbearing father has planned for her. Let me just say, I lived a completely different life from Nidali, but I resonated with her very much as a character. The story is told as a first-person narrative, so you really grow and love her from the beginning because of her quirks and charm. As mentioned above, I consider myself "half-and-half" although I am half white and half-Asian. I do know what it is like living with an overbearing father who knows everything and a very eccentric mother. In essence, this book could easily be about my family (other than the parts where her Baba (aka father) gets abusive with her). I truly loved her mother's character because she reminded me so much of my own crazy mother. My favorite parts involve Nidali writing a letter to Saddam Hussein and the story of the wasp while losing her virginity.

A Map of Home is an unusual yet highly entertaining book. I've never read anything like it before, and I loved it. I've never read a book that takes place in the Middle East, so I really didn't know what to expect. Nidali's struggles through childhood to adulthood with forthright language and beautiful imagery make it a book not to miss. I'm not in a book club, but I highly recommend this one. The characters are delightful and real, which make the book a gem.

Also, I learned something that I must share with the world. Nidali talks about Jay-Z's song "Big Pimpin," and her father tells her that the song is from a famous Egyptian musician. I always wonder where they stole the hook. Gotta give props to Abdel Haleem. You can hear the music on YouTube.

Jen's Rating: *****

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tells the story of a girl, Nidali, growing up in Kuwait during the time before and during the Iraqi invasion, eventually fleeing to Egypt and the US. This book was just okay for me. I felt sometimes that the writing seemed a little forced. I've generally appreciated the perspective of coming of age stories, when stories are told from the point of view of a young person, however I didn't really enjoy it in this book. I think its because the narrator is so spunky and strong and independent....little too spunky, strong, and independent to seem realistic or relatable, or honestly for me, even that likable. While some of events and metaphors used were creative and funny, they didn't seem very natural coming from a child/teen narrator. Nidali often had very deep insights into things that were happening around her, but again they seemed unrealistic for someone so young. I felt like the plot and characters weren't developed all that well and in some ways I felt like I was always waiting for the book to get started.

All that being said, there were parts of the book that I really did enjoy. Nidali's family was interesting- her father was Palestinian and her mother Greek, a definite globalized family. And I did like the character of her mother, I just wish it would have been more developed. And it was an engrossing story that kept me interested.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. So funny and raw and irreverent and smart and whimsical.
Review to come!

Here the review:

Like many a classic coming-of-age or fictional autobiography, A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar begins with the birth of the heroine. What you don’t usually see, though, is a screaming match in an American hospital in Arabic between the mother and father after a disagreement about the baby’s name. If you don’t know any Arabic words, this is an interesting introduction by the main character Nidali’s mother: “Kussy? Kussy ya ibn ilsharmoota?” “My pussy, you son of a whore? Don’t concern yourself with my pussy, you hear? No more of this pussy for you, you … ass!” When Nidali’s father tries to stop his wife from swearing at the top of her lungs in public, she protests that no one in the States understands them anyway and to prove her point tells a white woman her baby looks like a monkey. The woman nods and smiles.

This beginning sets the irreverent, raw, no-holds-barred tone of Jarrar’s first novel...

See the rest at the lesbrary: http://lesbrary.com/2014/09/08/casey-...

[Sandy D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a lot of memoirs about the Middle East, but this one was unique. The author's humor, her incredible use of language (including bad language!), and her ambition and love for life really made reading it a joy. I hope she writes a lot more books.

[Sanya Bery · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is a nice, easy ready. easy in the tone and the pace - not in the emotional heaviness of the book. there is so many serious events and themes that are being explored in a childish, innocent narrator that you cannot not love

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

The figurative language and images in this novel are simply breathtaking. There are so many creative surprises and literary pleasure along the way--switching to a second person voice in one chapter, incorporating hilarious compositions in another, referring to Hemingway's story "Hills Like White Elephants" with the title of Chapter Eight, "Tanks Like Green Elephants." The turn of each page brought some other delightful twist.

The characters in "A Map of Home" are memorable, larger than life, and yet they still feel like real people with insurmountable faults and unattainable dreams. I love the raw honesty of the first person narrator, Nidali Ammar. I love how her voice can make me laugh out loud one moment, and then bring about a profound sadness the next. This is the magic of Randa Jarrar.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adored this book. It was a moving, gripping, and phenomenal tale of growing up as a bisexual woman in the middle east and the description was so rich and gorgeous that I was loathe to see it end. The main character was wonderful, and her struggles were so interesting and relatable. The themes of identity and belonging transcend cultures and make me excited for the next offering by this author.

The only bad part was the last 50 pages. Once they move to America, the writing style lost its gorgeous beauty and became choppy, which was a damn shame. While I still loved it, I felt like the author was trying to make the ending nicer and neater then it should have been. I can't wait for her next book and I hope her next editor can really work with her so that she maintains a constant style throughout.

[Adriana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't care for this book too much. I just thought that it didn't go in depth enough about what was going on in Palestine. It read more like juvenile entries in a home journal which I know was kind of intentional since Nidali was the narrator. Also, I didn't care for the language. I thought Nidali and her father were so disrespectful to each other and just in general with the amount of profanities they used. I just didn't think the book was well thought out enough. I prefer writers like Amy Tan and Abraham Verghese.

[Heeba Haider · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. Not everyone will be able to connect to it completely, but I sure did. It is perfectly written and I would definitely recommend it to people. I sure did wish that Fakhr and Nidali would end up together. Really hoping that a sequel would be on the way.

[Rosmona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Papei a novela dun bocado. Encantoume.
Iso si, eu quitaría todos os "puta", "fillo de puta", etc. a modo de insulto, claro.

[Razzle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book because it gave me a glimpse into worlds I don't know much about. The narrator was a child in Kuwait, fled from Saddam's invasion, lived in Egypt, and then ultimately Texas. Her voice was funny, if affected, and there's a natural, casual incorporation of striking detail which I enjoyed.

It's allegedly a novel (seems like memoir to me), and it's more of a picaresque than anything plot-driven. There's a character arc, of sorts, but there's not much direction overall.

It's also pretty obscene, if you're into that.

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5)

Rep: Egyptian Palestinian bi mc, Egyptian Palestinian side character, Egyptian side characters, Palestinian side characters, Kuwaiti side characters

CWs: physical abuse, rape

[Fatma · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS WAS AWESOME. Podcast episode to follow, which will look into this in detail.

[Nicole Means · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first began reading this book, I was reminded of the connections between Islam and Christianity, and I imagined this story would delve deeper into those connections. As the story unfolds, Nidali, the young narrator, does not seem to care about religion or background, although she is a little perplexed upon seeing her best friend 'cross' herself. Jarrar's introductory chapters remind us that hate is not something we are born with; rather, it is something that arises when someone or something gets inside of our head. As children we often believe in the unknown and practice tolerance, but as we get older something happens to us. As Nidali becomes older she begins to question her heritage and her relationship with her parents, and Jarrar does a beautiful job delving into Nidali's inner thoughts. So far, Jarrar hit the mark!
Things take a turn in the second portion of this book--the same book that had such promise. In fact, one of my favorite new quotes is from Jarrar's text is, "When it comes to maps, accuracy is always a question of where you are standing." Jarrar has real insight and a knack for storytelling, but she did not live up to that potential during the second half of the book. Instead of delving into Nidali's struggles--her relationship with her abusive father, or coping with being uprooted from her home numerous times, or even just dealing with being an awkward teenager in a brand new culture--the author superficially turns to gratuitous sex and unnecessary cursing. I am by no means a prude, just a teacher constantly seeking to expand my classroom library. This book would have made a wonderful addition because of the deeper issues it touches upon. Unfortunately, Jarrar gets sucked into thinking what her audience wants to read, as opposed to what audiences need to read. This book is undeserving of such a powerful title because it merely skims the surface of the human struggle to establish roots and recreate our own maps of home.

[Shellie (Layers of Thought) · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this wonderful, humorous, and powerful story - Nidali is a strong teen caught between self discovery, and the constraints of war within a culture where women are subjected to very confining roles. The story opens with her “Baba” hoping for a the birth of a boy, due to his awareness of the difficulties facing women in Kuwait. In doing so he accidently names her Nidal. When realizing she is a girl, he adds an i creating Nidali, the narrator’s name.

Born in America from an Egyptian and Greek mother and a Palestinian father Nidale’s roots are as complex and ethnically diverse as the middle east itself. When the family moves back to Kuwait in the volatile 80’s from American, they will eventually be forced to leave again. Eventually they will immigrate back to America, confusing and complicating the question of where exactly is home?

Here is a quote which sums the title up of A Map of Home. After leaving Kuwait, Nidali has drawn a map of Palestine while sitting at the family table while talking with her father:

“You still remember that?” I nodded and looked at the map nervously, hesitant about whether I’d drawn it right. I pointed at the western border and asked, “Is that right?” “Who knows,” he said, waving his hand dismissively …

“What do you mean, Baba when you say ‘who knows’?”

“Oh habibti. That map is from a certain year. The maps that came earlier looked different. And the ones that come after, ever more different.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… there’s no telling. There’s no telling where home starts and where it ends.”

Hilarious and thought provoking A Map of Home is a down to earth insight into the complexities of middle eastern cultures. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a mostly lighthearted view on difficult and often misunderstood subjects – war and who are our middle Eastern neighbors.

[Bill Bruno · Rating 2 out of 5]

Randa Jarrar's coming of age novel, A Map of Home, has some interesting elements but is ultimately unspectacular. Like many first novels, this is very autobiographical with the central character, Nidali, being a Palestinian-American born in the U.S. but having a childhood in Kuwait and Egypt before moving back to the U.S. as a teenager.

Because Jarrar had an interesting life, there are sections of the book that reflect that. Her family's flight across Iraq after that country occupied Kuwait was a thrilling ride and their inability to go home afterwards because of the pro-Iraq stance of Palestinian leaders was touchingly done.
However, one gets the impression that Jarrar simply took the happenstance events of her own life and fictionalized them without the additional focus that a novel requires.

The relationship with, Esam, the fundamentalist cousin is a missed opportunity and an example. This could've have been a very intriguing conflict between a westernized adolescent and an indoctrinated jihadi wannabe but it becomes a relatively unconnected incident with a character who remains undeveloped. The story of Nidali's name, a boy's name from a father whose hopes for a son led him to prematurely name her with a boy's name, Nidal, which was them feminized with an "i" after he realized that he'd jumped the gun, is an example of cutesy touch that doesn't really go anywhere. The sections on her discovering sexuality and her teenage romance with Fakhr seem like typical YA fare.

Indeed, much of the novel is like that the above; Jarrar certainly has personality but I think this would have been more engaging as a memoir rather than a novel.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is laugh-out-loud funny, while telling an entertaining and sometimes moving story of an Arab family's 17-year journey from America to Kuwait to Egypt and back to America again. During that time, its narrator Nidali grows from her arrival as a newborn at a hospital in Boston to her departure from home for college. Hers is a tightly-knit family, her father Palestinian and her mother Egyptian. From beginning to end there are stormy scenes between parents and between parents and children. Though their domestic life is interrupted by the Gulf War, requiring them to flee by car across Iraq to Jordan, global politics seem to have little effect on the real focus of their lives - being a family.

Nidali is independent minded from an early age, a trait she inherits from both of her parents. She takes liberties whenever there is opportunity, resulting in nearly never-ending disputes with her father and conflicts with teachers. Meanwhile, her mother demands to be her own person, as well, and both suffer more than their share of abuse for the privilege of doing exactly what they please. Father may know best but he seldom gets his way. There's plenty of trash talk and unembarrassed references to sex, which may put off readers accustomed to more idealistic portrayals of family life, but discord seems to be the tie that binds in this bittersweet story. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It is a great example, along with Junot Diaz’s writing, of how the voice of a narrator can make you fall in love with a character and what she might have to say before the story really even begins. It is a bildungsroman, starring Nidali, a spunky charismatic firecracker of a girl, who is born in Chicago, grows up in Kuwait and then after war displaces her, moves to Egypt, and then after more difficulties moves to Texas.

I can’t tell you how many times this book had me laughing my ass off. The humor is informed by sadness and struggle (in Korean we call that feeling “han”–and not incidentally, Nidali’s very name means “struggle”) and I found myself identifying SO much with Nidali. The humor is effective because it has layers of meaning, because we know what it is trying to deflect, and because it drives us forward in a narrative that is, in the end, unflinching in its honesty.

And despite all the laughing throughout my reading (there are sooo many killer lines in this book that sometimes I wondered if Randa was guided by Margaret Cho’s spirit), in the end, I burst into tears. “Stop crying, stop crying!” my husband playfully admonished me, as I closed the book.

[Alena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like Jarrar's writing style. I'm surprised that she was able to make something so humorous out of the constant abuse Nidali suffers at the hands of her father, but she does it beautifully. Jarrar manages to touch the exact spot of where love, respect, anger and fear all come together. She also gives a magnificent view of time and place as Nidali's familiy is forced by war and circumstance to move constantly.
Nidali's coming of age plays out honestly, with tragedies and victories. Self-discovery occurs naturally over time without the author feeling the need to fill in every detail. As Nidali searches for a sense of "home," I found myself rooting for her, with all her imperfections. That's a novel that inspires me.

[Janelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up because it was on a list of possible titles for my library's next reading/film series, which will focus on the Middle East. But clearly this book won't make the cut, because I couldn't even finish it.

The top requirement that my fellow librarians and I have for selecting a book is that is have a "you've GOT to read this" quality. You know, the kind of book you can't put down because the storyline has pulled you in and won't let you go.

It's too bad this one didn't have that. I was looking forward to the part where they get to Texas (where I grew up).