Wow we’re on the same wavelength because I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately too. I find the idea of trying to qualify stories as “good” Muslim representation is a bit problematic nowadays tbh. Muslims are a diverse group of people, coming from various cultures as well as having different relationships to Islam. And the idea of “good representation” is so subjective to a singular person’s experience. If one story represents one Muslim but not another, who are we to say it’s not good representation? (this is all speaking under the assumption that Muslims are writing these stories and at least partially speaking from personal experiences). I think we need to look at representation as more of a systemic concept than one aimed at individual books or pieces of media. The pressure should not be on one book or author to perfectly represent Islam or Muslims, but rather there should be enough stories published and on the market that can accurately show the diversity of Muslim stories and experiences. This is where criticisms of what kinds of stories are chosen to be published plays in. I 100% understand the frustration that publishing prioritizes more “secular” Muslim stories, or stories that emphasize the negative parts of culture instead of ones showing joy or positive relationships. Those stories speak about valid issues that need to be told, but it’s easy to see the kind of narrative popular media is creating by only focusing on those stories. I hope we start moving forward in terms of representation where we have such a diversity of stories that each individual book won’t have the pressure of trying to represent such a huge community, and each individual person can find books that speak to the multiplicity of their identities.

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

This is the perfect way of looking at it Yara, I 100% agree! And I think you out it well, representation should be viewed as something systematic and bigger, there should be mor options available to everyone.

I haven't read this book and I am not Muslim. However this discussion made me think of reading 'It's Not About the Burqa' which is a collection of essays written from different Muslim women who talk about their faith, representation, sexuality etc and it was super interesting to read in my opinion because they all had vastly different ideas of what their faith meant to them and how they personally would like to be represented within the media. They were critical of different things and happy about different things. It really made me realize that no representation will connect with everyone within a certain faith, race etc. Which makes so much sense because everyone is their own person and having a blanket statement of how all people of a certain faith or race are is obviously incorrect. Anyway, this sounds like a good book and I'm glad to have it on my radar now =)

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

I agree! I've read It's not about the Burqa and it's a perfect example of why representation politics doesn't work.

I think this backlash also comes fron the reader expectation that the purpose of any given story is to be relatable. I've fallen into this trap too where I see certain identity markers on the back of a book and go in expecting to relate to the protagonists experience. But that's a really two dimensional way of approaching stories. Asking yourself if characters are interesting, nuanced and multifaceted rather than if their perspective perfectly aligns with your experiences can lead to more enriching reading experiences and less disappointment.

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

That's a great point! Nuance over relatability.

I almost peed my pants about your face when you said: 'the discourse' in the beginning of the clip. But great review and discussion as always. And also: happy to see you back on youtube!

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

"Discourse" was a polite way of saying BS lol. Thank you!!!

I am not Muslim but I did read this book and I really enjoyed it. This discussion made me think of my own community. I am Latinx and a lot of times a blanket statememts over what it means to be Latinx will be put upon all of us when we are over 20 different countries and all have our own seperate cultures. I also see that with my friends who are Muslim as well. They are from different countries and look at their faith/culture differently.

Very interesting to hear your thoughts on this book! I read it and appreciated it most for its exploration of healthy vs unhealthy friendships. I agree with your statement about publishing riding a lucrative train of "woke" themes and expecting this out of every author of any marginalization. It's resulting in a lot of heavy handed story telling imo

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

Lmao yes, heavy handed is the best we to describe it!

interesting commentary and im definitely going to add to my TBR and learning about a different culture from the book but also after hearing your opinion on it!

I think the standard in YA and religion is that the characters (or just the protagonist) is more secular - and sometimes their family’s strict religiosity is a source of tension. With Muslims it kinda seems like the publishing industry is treating them like secular Jews where it’s less about personal faith than culture.

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah that's true. It's quite sad, because it's okay and possible to tell stories about religious characters that don't necessarily preach to the reader at the same time.

Very interesting video ! I haven't read this book and I'm not Muslim. but what you said about forcing marginalized authors into writing "woke" stuff really resonated with me as a lesbian. It's like people want to fight stereotypes by "reversed" stereotypes, if you know what I mean. Like, the trope of the creepy lesbian is bad, obviously, but that doesn't mean stories that explore toxic queer relationships are evil homophobic rep. they deserve to exist too! so again, not Muslim myself but I think ppl need to remember that inspiration is a fickle muse, therefore forcing yourself to write something you don't care about, whether it's Islamic identity or anything else, will just lead to boring, tract-sounding fiction.

Such an interesting discussion (as always)! In terms of the publishing industry pushing a social justice / trauma message, I recall another discussion on booktube between Britt Writerly, Shay with the Hobbies, and Loc’D Booktician about publishing (and also book reviewers) prioritizing books from Black authors about an isolated Black protagonist with strong social / trauma messaging, and while those books are ofc important and valid, there’s a need to also prioritize and support books with a multitude of Black characters, celebrating Black culture and community! Loved Love from A to Z! I’ll check out these other recs :)

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly, GN publishing reduces the experiences of non-white people to social issues. It's becoming redundant.

Yara's comment really says it all so I'm just going to second that!! a lot of these pressures of expectation seem to come from there being such a limited number of Muslim stories, so they end up with the unfair burden of being perfect. And I definitely agree with you that the real problem is coming from publishers/editors!! I do feel that in general there is a real lack of positive (or even just not strongly negative) religious representation in the mainstream publishing industry, so I think it's really important to promote more variety in the stories told about different belief systems, especially those that are often marginalized in the Western media. But as you pointed out it's also really important not to end up in gatekeeping territory, and balancing between those things can obviously be difficult (also I FINALLY watched Encanto and that Surface Pressure reference!! 💔😭💕 I refuse to believe the official family info that says she's the middle child; Luisa has the strongest Eldest Daughter vibes I've ever seen, so there, Disney)

I have ordered the book 😀. Coming to me tomorrow 😁 so excited ❤️.

THIS THIS THIS I’d also like to add that I do see the main character exploring her muslimness in between the pages (especially considering the whole conflict between her father and her brother) just in her own way. And I think I’ll never forget that long ending monologue where she rushes to the water, her thoughts and feelings tumbling and jumbling around the questions that she’s been suppressing for so long until they ultimately burst out of her

Absolutely great points about the expectations of representation, thank you 🥰

I remember hearing all the... hype? Negative hype? About the representation, this was such an interesting discussion and I loved hearing your thoughts

I am also a bit wary about representation in books. Francina Simone made a really good video about that a long time ago. You can never be trully represented in a book unless you write it yourself. Sure, we can have some shared experiences as a certain group, but at the end of the day each of us is individual person and bashing something as bad rep just because it didn't relate exactly to my life is quite shortsighted.

I also wonder if she wants to write books around that time because yes she was a teenager around that time but I wonder if exploring that time period and Islamophobia in the United States specifically may help with her own traumas and pain, I know she said that A Very Large Expanse of Sea was her most autobiographical book to date at the time when it came out and how some of the events the main character experienced, she also experienced. I'm not Muslim and I haven't read this book yet, however, I wonder if the Muslims reading this wanted more of the faith based in the book, I think maybe it got mismarketed so badly that they were so excited for representation and when they didn't get that maybe they were let down? Idk how the author marketed this book but I know the publishing company marketed it the wrong way. I haven't read reviews yet either, just a guess. There's some faith based things in Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating has Muslim representation and talks a little bit about one of the main characters' faith, I don't think it's that much but it is important to that character. You're so right though about the representation and how authors decide to tell their story

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

Yes you're right, it was mismarketed! Picking it up, I'm like why is this made out to be a story about Islamophobia when it's SO much more than that? I still have to read Hani and Ishu, I'll get to that soon now that you've mentioned it.

I haven’t read this book, but as a Black American woman, I have similar feelings around Black representation in books. Black representation squews toward Black trauma over Black joy or just Black life in general. And I blame the publishing industry. I think they are publishing what they think WHITE ppl will read. I think they don’t feel it will be profitable to publish a diverse range of representation. I’m POSITIVE that the books are being written, but not being given a chance.

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

That's so true, and I agree that the blame is 100% with publishing. It's all about appealing to the white gaze by making stories about Black Americans centred around their 'political issues' so that white people could be 'educated' and feel like 'allies' when they've read the books. My friend Veena made and excellent discussion video on this that you should check out kzread.info/dash/bejne/lGx2xK6CmqXJdsY.html

This was such an interesting review & discussion! I recently read A Very Large Expanse of Sea, enjoyed it, and afterwards looked up the premise of Mafi's other contemporary novel, An Emotion of Great Delight, which really, really intrigued me. But then I read the controversy surrounding the book, heard that it was ostensibly bad muslim representation - and I was really put off by that, because of course, I wouldn't like to read something that's offensive to muslims. Thankfully, I found other own voices reviews, positive ones, which kind of reconciled me with this book. And now this very eloquent video review of yours has reminded me of it, so I'll probably pick it up soon!

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

I'm glad to hear that!

I read All-American Muslim Girl and watched your review about a year ago, and I also remember seeing backlash there because many people felt that Allie "bent the rules" of Islam way too much. But what was interesting to me was that people who didn't know much about Islam kind of took that as "this book is an objectively bad representation of Islam" when it seemed to me that those specific reviewers just didn't agree with how the protagonist was practicing it? Idk, I'm not Muslim myself, but I am religious and have seen debates like this play out in my own faith communities.

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

Yes that's an excellent point. Some Muslims may not like the way Islam is represented in a story because it does not align with what they believe to be the "correct" practice of Islam, but that does not make the book bad or problematic. Overvigilant nonMuslim readers who want to be seen as "allies" may take this to mean the book has "bad rep" and is therefore an objectively problematic book. It's a super interesting dynamic I think.

yes, representation politics falls on the spectrum of expectations.

So many great thoughts I want to respond to. Marketing definitely shares some of the fault since with such few YA novels about Muslim teens getting published and every. single. time. publishing makes it sounds like its THE one novel about said topic. What else are readers going to expect when it pushed as the novel that both unique in its existence and universal in its represantaion (arguably an impossible task). There is an ongoing trend of people turning away from their religous background in the global north, so finding books about any faith are actually rare. Part of is probably the persevering attitude that religion is less progressive and part of it is the scientism that's been overtaken discourse - so that is not helping in that regard. But I would always ask the reader if they have gone out to search for the books that DO explore their identity in a way they want. (I am the perfect example: I was unsatisfied that all the poly romances I could find were closed triads that closely resembled a straight ideal of commitment - instead of talking down those books I went out of my way to find the books I wanted and found the kind of representaion that felt closer to me.) As for expectations - this is such an important thing people always forget to factor in. Especially if you are an international reader reading an American book or an American reading a book set outisde the US/from a non-US author. Because that should already tell you something about what you are more likely to find in whatever book you pick up. And that is not even limited to representation of sexuality, faith or race but also language (which word are politically correct/socially accepted), history (what is referenced, if you understand the cultural impact), And your comment about "and if it happens to represent you" is spot on, especially in combination with how publishing is controlling trends and editors are influencing what is allowed to be included. I am just thinking about all Black romance authors who write about non-Black characters or interracial characters at most. They don't owe us to explicitely show us their lived experience. For one, it still influences their writing no matter how the characters look! You can find Black love romances if that's what you want, just dont single out specific authors if you want to talk about this broader trend or why these stories sell more etc. It's okay to dislike a variety of reasons, including its representation. But HOW you phrase those thoughts is very important and the burden should never be placed on the book.

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

These are some excellent points and I agree with everything. And yes, if you want a specific kind of story, it likely exists, you juts have to make the effort to look for it!

💙

I haven't read this one, but most of the discourse I see about Muslim representation on bookish social media tends to boil things down to positive representations of perfect observance, to a level that often isn't true to the geographical, generational or cultural realities that are out there. I saw a bizarrely high number of complaints about Uzma Jalaluddin's Hana Khan Carries On that focused on criticism that a secondary character was in an interfaith marriage. And I wasn't a fan of that book for other reasons, but I live near the neighbourhood where it's set, and it would be far more unrealistic for there not to be any mixed couples in any given social circle, so what those criticisms were asking for definitely wasn't a representation of a real place. And that's without getting into what it implies when those complaints come up about memoirs. The implication that people shouldn't admit to being less than perfect (or that if their life was a bit stereotypical they need to keep that hidden) is such a narrow-minded way to think about people. But then I'm a dog-owning secularist, so what do I know? That's a little tongue-in-cheek, but I've seen enough "secular Muslims are lazy and/or unbelievers" in these same discussions, so... 🤷🏻‍♀

@booksaremysociallife

2 жыл бұрын

It's quite telling sometimes. A lot of reviews come from a place of judgement, the way they judge these books is the way they judge other Muslims irl who don't 'measure' up. I believe that there should be more stories out there for the Muslims who want 'religious representation' whatever that implies, but thay should not expect it from every Muslim author. We're not owed relatablity and validation by the books we read.

Okk but the other tahereh mafi books like the Shatter Me series…can we say that they are “halal” to read, i mean such content is not really “encouraged” among Muslim readers if I’m not wrong…. Can we have a clear thought about this too🧐 is it ok for muslim readers or not?

@booksaremysociallife

Ай бұрын

Why you asking me girl? Readers can decide that for themselves.

I agree about expectations and representations but I always keep in mind that non people from that group will read it and take it for face value if they know nothing else. For example,, I liked Legendborn when I first read it but then I realized at face value a non Black person reads it and takes away that its ok for Black people to exhaust themselves to feel falsely secure in white spaces. And while the author doesn't owe the Black community a penny, the Black community again is being put on a struggle pedestal.