JourneyOnline
Does My Head Look Big In This?
By Randa Abdel-Fattah
Pan Australia
RRP: $16.95
High school is never easy at the best of times, but imagine facing up to your classmates after a school holiday break as a Muslim teenage girl who has decided that now is the time to start wearing her hijab fulltime.
This is the start of a rollercoaster ride for readers as Amal Abdel-Hakim a 16 year old Australian-Palestinian-Muslim goes through the normal teenage troubles of boys, parents and peer pressure at her private Melbourne Grammar school. Al this is made just that more challenging as Amal attempts to find her faith identity and be true to herself.
This novel is non stop great reading from beginning to end. It doesn’t matter what faith you are, being a teenager is never easy and this novel just looks at it from one point of view.
Amal is a character that is instantly likeable and the character is just a normal 16year old girl that just happens to be Muslim. This book looks at prejudice, peer pressure, relationships, religion and so much more in an amazing 340 pages. I found it to be educational, funny and most importantly an interesting insight as to how teenagers approach faith issues. At no time is religion of any sort looked down on and the author has done a great job of reeling the reader into a novel that will be hard to put down.
Part of the 2006 Books Alive Great Read Guide, Randa Abdel-Fattah’s “Does my head look big in this” is definitely a great read and one that even the most non book loving teenager will no doubt enjoy.
