Customer Reviews

Ten Things I Hate About Me

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After the sudden death of her mother years ago, Jamilah and her older brother and sister have been raised by their conservative Lebanese-Muslim father. Being the youngest is not easy, since her older sister, Shereen, is forever finding ways to irritate their father, and her brother, Bilal, is a constant disappointment. It's no wonder that Jamilah has begun to live a double life - one at home and another at school.

She has dyed her dark hair blonde and wears contacts to hide her dark eyes. At home she is Lebanese-Muslim, but at school everyone thinks she is just a normal Sydney-born Australian like the majority of the students in the tenth grade.

Unfortunately, things aren't going very well.

Jamilah loves her heritage - the music, the religious beliefs, the food, and the family, but she hates the rules that go along with all she loves. Her father believes in a strict curfew that requires her to be home by sunset. She dreams of having a boyfriend and going on a date, but that's totally out of the question. As a result, Jamilah finds herself trying to balance both lives. Her friends see one side of her and her family sees the other.

While at school, Jamilah observes members of the popular crowd viciously taunting any students from different ethnic backgrounds. To keep her own secret, she shamefully watches silently, afraid the cruelty could be directed towards her if she speaks up to defend the others. With her double life threating to crumble around her, she attempts to convince her domineering father that she needs more freedom than he is willing to allow.

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT ME gives readers a glimpse into the Lebanese-Muslim culture and at the same time demonstrates that the true and honest path is not always the easiest to travel, but perhaps the most satisfying in the end.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Jamilah is leading a double life. At home she's a dutiful daughter, the "good girl" in her Lebanese Muslim family. Her older sister is a devoted Muslim --- she even wears the hijab in public --- but much to their widowed father's dismay, she has foregone college in favor of social and political activism. Her older brother parties, drinks and dates girls; he gets away with it because he's a boy. As for Jamilah, she's convinced that the only outings her father will let her go on are her weekly trips to madrasa, Arabic school. Jamilah loves madrasa --- she's the drummer for a talented Arabic band --- but she'd also really like to, say, go to a boy-girl party or even to her upcoming 10th grade formal dance. She knows he would never let her go, though, and she also knows that her friends from school would never understand his strictness.

That's because at school, Jamilah is known only as Jamie, and no one knows about her Lebanese heritage or her Muslim background. With her dyed-blonde hair and blue contact lenses, Jamie looks just as much like a "skip" as any Anglo kids in her school. Racism and ethnic prejudice run rampant at Jamie's Sydney, Australia, school, however, so, as Jamie explains, "I've hidden the fact that I'm of Lebanese-Muslim heritage from everybody at school to avoid people assuming I drive planes into buildings as a hobby."

Unfortunately, Jamie's crush, Peter, is one of the prime instigators of those kinds of racist taunts --- and because no one knows her real identity, she just has to sit idly by while the other Muslim kids take the verbal abuse of the "in group." When Jamie learns that Peter, one of the most popular and cutest boys in school, might just like her back, she's determined to find a way to go to the formal dance and keep her ethnic identity a secret from Peter.

But, as usual, fate has a way of intervening, and when Jamilah finds herself baring her soul --- both sides of it --- to an online correspondent known only as "John," she discovers the liberation of being truly honest about who she is and where she comes from. But can she translate that cyber-bravery into real-life honesty? And can she trust her true friends to stick by her true self?

Randa Abdel-Fattah's first book, DOES MY HEAD LOOK BIG IN THIS?, was widely praised for incorporating Muslim culture and identity into a "typical" young adult novel about a normal teenaged girl. In it, the heroine makes a decision to wear the hijab to her mainstream school as a gutsy declaration of her Muslim pride and identity. TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT ME has a somewhat less positive tone. In case you couldn't tell from the title --- which, despite its play on a popular movie title, manages to convey some real self-loathing --- Jamilah spends most of the book feeling down on herself, her family, even her choice of friends.

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT ME does raise important questions about trust and self-confidence, and it, like its predecessor, does a good job of showing that Muslim families live everywhere and share many of the same concerns as their non-Muslim counterparts. Jamilah questions her father and her Arabic school teacher about the contradictions she sees within Muslim culture, and she certainly asserts her own will against her oppressive father's. But she also appreciates, and eventually embraces, her religious and ethnic identity in a positive way.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

Ten Things I Hate About Me has plenty of positive aspects which outweigh the few faults it does have. It's a little predictable with Timothy's subplot, as well as the overall big deal of Jamilah/Jamie's identity. It's a little preachy at times, but the moments of preachyness do fit in with the plot. The characters are pretty well-rounded, and I particularly enjoyed the characterization of Jamilah's father. It's conversational and relaxed storytelling, and while the writing's not the greatest, it's still a good book. I know it's one I and many other girls, Muslim and non, can relate to, maybe on different levels, but relate nonetheless. The environment Jamilah has been brought up in is captured really well and again, is something people can identify with. It is pretty unique to read a young adult book about Muslim cultural identity, and I applaud Abdel-Fattah for writing the way she does. I enjoyed this book, much more than Abdel-Fattah's other book, Does My Head Look Big in This? I thought this one was more down-to-earth and relatable.

Rating: 4/5

Ten Things I Hate About Me is written from a perspective I've never encountered before--an Australian Lebanese-Muslim teen. Jamilah has a double identity. At home she lives a traditional and highly structured life with her strict father and older siblings. At school, she is Jamie, a blonde (thanks to hair dye) and blue-eyed (thanks to contact lenses) girl who will do anything to hide her ethnicity and become more popular.

This dual personality is a balancing act which prevents her from being truly comfortable with anyone. Enter her new email buddy, with whom she can finally be honest. You can probably guess how that storyline ends.

What I appreciated most about this novel was the insight into the life of a Lebanese-Australian family. Author Randa Abdel-Fattah sprinkles facts throughout the novel which broadened my knowledge of the culture. While obviously heightened to propel the plot, it was interesting to learn about the cultural tensions that could exist in an Australian high school. For example, people from New Zealand experienced a lot more prejudice than I expected.

There were a few instances of sloppy writing that took me out of the story. At one point, the descriptor "bottle green" was used twice in as many pages. Also, multiple scenes end with Jamilah storming from the room in tears. While this may be typical teenage behavior, it felt more like lazy writing and a lack of direction.

Minor complaints aside, Ten Things I Hate About Me is a novel that will appeal to many female readers and is worth checking out.

Are your parents uber strict? Jamie's father is, so she never, ever has her friends come over to her house, and she rarely gets the chance to go out with them after school. Her dad changed when her mom died, writing up a charter of curfew rights for Jamie and telling her all sorts of things she can and can't do. Meanwhile, he lets her older brother Bilal do whatever she want because he's a boy, and Jamie's sick of the double standard. She'd like to confide in her older sister, but Shereen is heavily involved in intellectual pursuits and protests at college.

Her father's charter isn't the only reason Jamie won't invite her friends over. You see, at school, they don't all know her heritage. They don't know that she's Muslim. They don't know she's the drummer in an Arabic band. They don't know her real name is Jamilah, or that she dyes her hair blond and wears blue contacts sometimes. She squirms when the jerks in her class say hateful or ignorant things. Jamie just wants to fit in, but when her patience and her faith are tested, will she stand up for herself, her culture, and her family, or will she keep biting her tongue?

Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah is realistic, enjoyable, and thoughtful. I strongly urge people to pick up this book, as well as her previous novel, Does My Head Look Big in This? Abdel-Fattah's books will give you a new appreciation for other cultures as well as your own.

This book was something I saw back in highchool on a library shelf or in a bookstore and was always captavated by the unique cover. But i never picked it up and read it until college.
other positive reviews were nice,but did not get to the heart of this book. this book talks about learning to trust and making the right choices. it spells out family in vivid detail and goes very deep within just one book.
Jamie aka Jamilah reminded me so much of myself although i am not Muslim nor do i live in Australia but this was the kind of book that is real sounding and relatable.the teens actually sound like teens and the adults actually sound like adults and the people actually live like heroes in the end by making simple everyday choices. many ya books have teens with crazy hormones entertaining us with drama. but those stories lack the heroism and characters we enjoy from classic literature.
i liked the central female character and i like how she dealt wth the boys and girls in her life in the end. i liked how she didnt want to sneak around anymore and how she forgave others and herself. if you read anything in 2012 read this. Abdel-Fattah does a wonderful job incorporating modern with fiction and creating a world so much like our own.
it took me about 2 days around Thanksgivng to read this and i am so glad i did. it gave me hope for thenext generation of writers in ya fiction...a genre i almost gave up on. im so glad i finally decided to pick this one up in the end.

This book is written more for a teen audience and I am not a teen. However, I came across the title and thought it sounding like a good book. It really addresses being comfortable with who you are and choosing your own identity. Many of the other reviews are basically summaries so I will not retell the story but its an easy read and I definitely recommend it. It does deal with some racial issues. It is set in Australia and the main character is Muslim.

i would hide my book under my pillow until dad went down stairs then read for hours. this book is my favorite because i could really connect to the main character, jamie