“A masterful, must-read contribution to conversations
on power, justice, healing, and devotion from a singular voice I now trust with
my whole heart.”—GLENNON DOYLE, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed
A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her
coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this
daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.
When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush
on her teacher—her female teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction
she can’t yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown.
Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent
years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don’t matter, and
it’s easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class,
she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned
that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam,
uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?
From that moment on, Lamya makes sense of her struggles
and triumphs by comparing her experiences with some of the most famous stories
in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people
from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead
be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his
ark, begins to build a life of her own—ultimately finding that the answer to
her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a
queer, devout Muslim immigrant.
This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning
Lamya’s childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through
early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and
love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one’s own
life.