This is a young adult, coming of age, novel about Amir who has a clandestine, high school romance with a jock. He is then blackmailed over this relationship - another boy at school threatens to out Amir to his Iranian Muslim family - so Amir goes on the run to Rome. He dodges all his family's calls – 'coz how will he explain the series of events that led to him being in Rome?
It is extremely fast paced, keeping a light breezy writing style. Amir meets a group of older gay men in Italy, a mix of Italian and American with whom he parties most afternoons/evenings. He starts to explore his sexuality and gay culture, away from home, his family and all that is familiar. He tells these new friends his family has kicked him out, upon finding out he is gay.
Amir, having grown up very sheltered, is very naive and there is a dreamlike quality to this hazy feel-good start of this exciting holiday he has manufactured for himself – full of drinking wine and eating good food with attractive men, dancing to queer music and watching queer TV.
As the summer passes, Amir gets a glimpse of the complexity of adult gay life; open relationships where the partners are not in accord, 'found family' and intense friendship dynamics. As the summer comes to an end, Amir's family and his lie catch up with him and it culminates in Amir and his family arguing loudly on the plane home to the UK which lands them in interrogation rooms – which is how the book starts. The story is written with different chapters from different family members perspectives, some in the interrogation rooms and some in the recent past which works well.
It is stated that the book is based on true events and reading an interview with the author he states he chose to spend a summer writing in Rome, met a great gay crowd whilst there and was interviewed by airport security on his return which is the arc of this story.
Final comments:
1) The Muslim 'issue' – a lot of people wanted to hear more about the character's Muslim experience and were disappointing that Amir and his family were not more strongly practising. The only thing I would contribute to this conversation is this - The author is a gay Iranian Muslim who based this story on his own experiences, this is what we got. We cannot expect everything about a culture/religion etc. from one person, this is one representation and its a little disappointing to read so many critiques of it for 'not being enough'. This also shows why representation is so important, if there was more content available from a diverse range of writers, readers would have more choices to be able to see themselves and their culture in literature.
2) I personally was disappointed with the lack of queer women in the book, as I often am by anything touted as 'LGBTQI+ literature' however what I took from this is the author has not had a lot of contact with queer woman and can't write what he does not know. That said anything that includes a more diverse range away from white cis gay men that dominate LGBTQ+ representation, then I love it, and I loved this book. Now I need to find the books queer women are writing!
It is extremely fast paced, keeping a light breezy writing style. Amir meets a group of older gay men in Italy, a mix of Italian and American with whom he parties most afternoons/evenings. He starts to explore his sexuality and gay culture, away from home, his family and all that is familiar. He tells these new friends his family has kicked him out, upon finding out he is gay.
Amir, having grown up very sheltered, is very naive and there is a dreamlike quality to this hazy feel-good start of this exciting holiday he has manufactured for himself – full of drinking wine and eating good food with attractive men, dancing to queer music and watching queer TV.
As the summer passes, Amir gets a glimpse of the complexity of adult gay life; open relationships where the partners are not in accord, 'found family' and intense friendship dynamics. As the summer comes to an end, Amir's family and his lie catch up with him and it culminates in Amir and his family arguing loudly on the plane home to the UK which lands them in interrogation rooms – which is how the book starts. The story is written with different chapters from different family members perspectives, some in the interrogation rooms and some in the recent past which works well.
It is stated that the book is based on true events and reading an interview with the author he states he chose to spend a summer writing in Rome, met a great gay crowd whilst there and was interviewed by airport security on his return which is the arc of this story.
Final comments:
1) The Muslim 'issue' – a lot of people wanted to hear more about the character's Muslim experience and were disappointing that Amir and his family were not more strongly practising. The only thing I would contribute to this conversation is this - The author is a gay Iranian Muslim who based this story on his own experiences, this is what we got. We cannot expect everything about a culture/religion etc. from one person, this is one representation and its a little disappointing to read so many critiques of it for 'not being enough'. This also shows why representation is so important, if there was more content available from a diverse range of writers, readers would have more choices to be able to see themselves and their culture in literature.
2) I personally was disappointed with the lack of queer women in the book, as I often am by anything touted as 'LGBTQI+ literature' however what I took from this is the author has not had a lot of contact with queer woman and can't write what he does not know. That said anything that includes a more diverse range away from white cis gay men that dominate LGBTQ+ representation, then I love it, and I loved this book. Now I need to find the books queer women are writing!