‘Remarkable’ ‘amazing’ ‘splendid’ are just a bunch of very short and inaccurate words to describe how I exactly felt after finishing A Very Large Expanse of Sea. This must be the first time it took me so long to find the correct form of sentences to describe how amazing I truly thought this book was.
This book spoke about intense issues like what Muslims went through after the unfortunate incident that took place in 9/11 and I was shocked to read the things some individuals had to go through in order to just survive like a normal human being after that day. If only some people understood things more practically rather than emotionally back then, and if only they understood that blaming innocent citizens and abusing them for something they never even did was never the right thing to do. Everyone’s life would have been so much better.
I must say that I am so proud of the open mindedness of most of the people of this generation right now, doesn’t matter what others say. I am proud that most of us nowadays understand each other’s pain and respect each other regardless of our history and choices.
I always wished to read a YA book that had a Muslim hijabi main lead. And my wish came true. Thanks to Tahereh Mafi! I think I found little bits of the author herself in the characteristics of the main lead, and a little bit of all my friends and a little bit of me. Shirin was quite an attention-grabbing and interesting character.
I don’t know how it is even possible for Tahereh to constantly write about perfect fictional boyfriends for us in all her books. She never fails to make us all in love with them. Starting from Warner to Ocean from this book, they all impressed me immensely.
A 5 out of 5 stars for this thought-provoking novel.
My favorite quote: “Because I always say that. I always say that I don't care what other people think. I say it doesn't bother me but it's not true. It's not true, because it hurts every time, and that means I still care. It means I'm still not strong enough because every time someone says something rude, it hurts. It never stops hurting. It only gets easier to recover.”
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