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Looking For Palestine: Growing Up Confused In An Arab-American Family (2013)

by Najla Said(Favorite Author)

3.55 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1594487081 (ISBN13: 9781594487088)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Riverhead Hardcover

review 1: I enjoyed this memoir, it was very warmly written. One of the most interesting things for me was the author coming to terms with her talents as an artist and realizing her own personal gifts while having grown up with an important critical theorist as a father. I thought it was a good depiction of people being smart in different ways from each other. She seemed intimidated at first by her father's intellect but she journeyed to finding her own talents as an individual.
review 2: I think this book really shows how important our roots are to us as we grow up. Najla grew up in NYC feeling that she did not know "who" she was! She was an Arab but not a Muslim, she was the daughter of a father born in Jerusalem when it was Palestine. But now Jerusalem is in Israel, a... more nation her father scorns. Add to that her father is Edward Said, a well known Arab intellectual who is an enigma to her. Najla's mother was born into a Lebanese Christian family. Najla loves her Lebanese family but trips there are few and far between due to the war. Najla's closest experience to a "normal" family is a Jewish family whose daughter is her best friend. This Jewish family embraces Najla for who she is and that feels so good to this young girl. The book is a stream of consciousness type and maybe that is why I liked it as I think in the same way! An interesting look at a different culture from my own. less

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