Bestest. Ramadan. Ever.

by Medeia Sharif

Overview

No pizza. No boyfriend. (No life.) Okay, so during Ramadan, we're not allowed to eat from sunrise to sunset. For one whole month. My family does this every year, even though I've been to a mosque exactly twice in my life. And it's true, I could stand to lose a few pounds. (Sadly, my mom's hotness skipped a generation.) But is starvation really an acceptable method? I think not. Even worse, my oppressive parents forbid me to date. This is just cruel and wrong. Especially since Peter, a cute and crushable artist, might be my soul mate. Figures my bestest friend Lisa likes him, too. To top it off, there's a new Muslim girl in school who struts around in super-short skirts, commanding every boy's attention—including Peter's. How can I get him to notice me? And will I ever figure out how to be Muslim and American?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738723235
Publisher:	North Star Editions
Publication date:	07/08/2011
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Medeia Sharif (Miami Beach, FL) is a Kurdish-American author and high school English teacher. She received her master's degree in psychology from Florida Atlantic University. Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. is her debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

"A humorous, hip look at the ups and downs of fasting for Ramadan within the context of intergenerational and cultural challenges." —Kirkus Reviews

"I love Almira Abdul—the honest, tell-it-like-it-is, funny, and very real main character of Medeia Sharif's wonderful, eye-opening debut." —Melissa Senate, author of See Jane Date

"Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. deftly combines humor and poignancy with an authentic teen voice set against the multicultural background of vibrant Miami and Almira's loving yet strict Muslim family." —Paula Yoo, author of Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds and Good Enough

"I laughed out loud as Almira struggled to fit in with her traditional family as well as the rest of the world." —Sydney Salter, author of My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters

From the Publisher

When a 15-year-old contemporary American Muslim from a "half-way religious" family opts to observe Ramadan, she has no idea how difficult and rewarding it will be.

As Ramadan begins, Almira vows this will be her "first successful month of fasting" after last year's disgraceful encounter with some Oreos. Her grandparents "follow Islam to the tee," and her parents are "pretty religious," while Almira's only "sort of religious" and one of just two Muslim students at her Miami-Dade high school. Her parents have high expectations, including medical school and an arranged marriage, but Almira's focused on her weight, hair, braces and boys. Ready and determined to have a boyfriend despite parental prohibitions, Almira has a crush on classmate Peter, but so does her best friend, who disses her when Peter chooses Almira. Ramadan proves to be a "month of discovery" as Almira sheds pounds and gains an "inner pool of strength." She chronicles her Ramadan experience from beginning to end in a breezy banter that progresses from the shallow to the insightful as she learns humility, patience and the importance of faith.

A humorous, hip look at the ups and downs of fasting for Ramadan within the context of intergenerational and cultural challenges.(Fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews

Gr 6–10—Fifteen-year-old weight-obsessed Almira is trying to fast through her first Ramadan. She looks forward to slimming down during the month. She and her best friend, Lisa, both develop a crush on the same boy and conflict ensues. Almira has to balance her religious beliefs, her parents' expectations of her, and the pressure to "fit in." The teen is described as being a size eight, and while she may feel chubby next to her exercise-obsessed mother (whom she consistently and somewhat creepily describes as "hot"), a girl who wears a size eight is not fat and neither is Ramadan a holy diet plan. Also, Lisa's stupidity is played for laughs, although someone in an honors class not knowing that The Diary of Anne Frank was written by Anne Frank is hardly amusing. The book is too long, and Almira's incessant whining about her size becomes tiresome. There is a sweet scene in which Almira goes to mosque and enjoys the experience of practicing her faith with other Muslims; during this passage she finally seems real and not a caricature of a weight-obsessed teen. While books with Muslim lead characters are needed, this one is an additional purchase for libraries in which Randa Abdel-Fattah's (very fine) books are popular.—Kristin Anderson, Columbus Metropolitan Library System, OH

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