Title: Saints and Misfits
Author: S.K. Ali
Series: N/A
Pages: 325
Publisher: Salaam Reads / Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers
Release Date: June 13th 2017
“There are three kinds of people in my world:
1. Saints, those special people moving the world forward. Sometimes you glaze over them. Or, at least, I do. They’re in your face so much, you can’t see them, like how you can’t see your nose.
2. Misfits, people who don’t belong. Like me—the way I don’t fit into Dad’s brand-new family or in the leftover one composed of Mom and my older brother, Mama’s-Boy-Muhammad.
Also, there’s Jeremy and me. Misfits. Because although, alliteratively speaking, Janna and Jeremy sound good together, we don’t go together. Same planet, different worlds.
But sometimes worlds collide and beautiful things happen, right?
3. Monsters. Well, monsters wearing saint masks, like in Flannery O’Connor’s stories.
Like the monster at my mosque.
People think he’s holy, untouchable, but nobody has seen under the mask
Except me.”
“I wish there was a way to still my heart. It feels like it’s not mine and wants out of my body. I seal it shut with another shrug.”
S.K. Ali’s Saints and Misfits follows fifteen-year-old Janna as she deals with the aftermath of being sexually assaulted. Janna’s dealing with her first crush on a non-Muslim, navigating a world that isn’t always accepting of a hijabi, and doing her best to find a way to be herself when this huge, traumatic thing is weighing down on her shoulders. Keeping this secret isn’t easy and with her older brother moving back home, forcing her to share a room with her mother, her life grows even more stressful. The end of the year is fast approaching and while final exams should be the only thing she’s stressing about, Janna is juggling her parents’ expectations and being pulled in different directions by her friends. The guilt she’s been carrying around for something that isn’t her fault is slowly chipping away at her, and it isn’t easy to let that guilt go when the person who attempted to rape her walks around like nothing happened.
Ali does a masterful job of dealing with heavy issues in her novel, but also being very aware of who her character is at only fifteen. Janna is an easy character to related to and like. She has a subtle sense of humor that I appreciated and I more than once snorted aloud while reading. There is a constant stream of voices whispering to her what they think and in the midst of all that noise, Janna is just trying to figure out what’s right for her. This isn’t always easy when contrary opinions are coming from people she loves. Janna doesn’t want to disappoint anyone, but it’s what inevitably happens, especially when her divorced parents hold such differing views of her faith and how she chooses to express it. I loved the strong sense of community Janna’s faith provided. She’s very involved with her local mosque which is lead by her uncle. Everyone is very caring and supportive and they felt like an extension of her own family. But for Janna, this puts her in an impossible situation because the person who assaulted her is a valuable member of this community. She’s got that doubt in the back of her mind that if she does speak up, not everyone is going to believe her. Every compliment directed at her assaulter, every time someone tries to talk him up to her is like a knife to the gut. This coupled with her inability to avoid him completely makes the book utterly heartbreaking to read at times.
I empathized with Janna so much when she felt she couldn’t open up to Tats, one of her non-Muslim friends, because of the added pressure of being from a marginalized community. She knows that anything she says negatively about someone in her community can be attributed to everyone. The outside world does not judge you as individuals, but as a group. I loved Janna’s relationship with her brother Muhammad because it felt so authentic. Getting on each other’s nerves, feeling loyal to one parent over the other and having this cause division between the two felt very real. There’s a little resentment when it comes to which parent is playing favorites with whom as well. I loved what Ali did with the romance portion of Janna’s story. I felt her butterflies and anxiousness when it came to her crush, but ultimately appreciated the more subtle development of Janna’ relationship with someone else. It was unexpected and yet felt so right. I loved the pacing of this relationship and how it was rooted in respect and I kind of wish we got a glimpse of what comes of it down the line.
S.K. Ali’s debut Saints and Misfits will make you laugh and cry, it will make you angry and happy, and at the end of the day, you’ll be forever grateful you read it.
5/5
★★★★★
Aww, great review! I’m so happy you loved this one. I read it recently for my summer class and really enjoyed it a lot. I need to hurry up and write my review for it, it’s on my never-ending list of reviews to catch up on lol!
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Thank you so much! I hope you can catch up soon!
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Welcome back and excellent review! I just recently listened to this on audio and I agree with pretty much everything you said here! 🙂
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Thank you so much, Lauren! I’m glad to be back. Yay!
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I keep meaning to check this one out from my library, and I’ve recently been seeing a bit of buzz about it because of how it tackles such a difficult topic in such a balanced way. I’m definitely going to have to check it out soon- I had no idea it was a debut!
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I hope you enjoy. Yes, I was so impressed with it being a debut and all.
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I was such a Jana fan. I felt like Ali did such a wonderful job crafting her characters. I fell in love with so many of them.
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I love Janna so much. She’s on my top contemporary protagonist list.
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Sounds like a fabulous book. I hope to read it soon.
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It was wonderful. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I did.
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Great review. I recently reviewed that one myself. I was equally heartbroken for Janna but loved watching her come in to her own and defeat her monster. Great review.
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Yes, it was a hard read, but rewarding in the end.
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Sounds like an interesting story. Good job on your review.
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Thanks so much!
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Amazing review as always love!! Wow this book seems deep!
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It was a really great read.
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I’m glad you loved this one! I did as well. 😊
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It was so good! I wish I had gotten to it sooner.
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Hope you enjoyed your time away! Man, this sounds like a book that should be getting more attention. Great review.
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It went by real fast because you know, life stops for no one. Saints and Misfits deserves all the attention. I loved it so much. Thank you!
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This has been on my shelf and I’ll admit I didn’t fully know what it was about, it was more of an impulse buy, but now I know I need to pick it up ASAP. Great review!
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I didn’t know too much about it at first either. I always assumed it was more of a light read, but then I read someone’s review of it and knew I had to pick it up. Yes, please do. I hope you enjoy! Thanks.
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Great review!
This sounds like a great book to read, especially since you gave it 5 stars. I’ll add it to my TBR.
Where is the novel set?
Dinh@Arlene’s Book Club
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Thank you! I like saving those five stars for really special book and this one was one of them. I’m not sure exactly which city they are in, but at one point they do make a road trip to Chicago.
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While I haven’t read the book, nor have I been a victim of sexual assault, it feels very . . . wrong to me that she is raped and then spends the rest of the book thinking about a crush. Like the author felt that this wouldn’t be a YA novel if it didn’t have a crush.
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Interesting perspective. I actually think it’s a good thing to show a victim (in the novel, it’s an attempted rape and is shown as a flashback later on in the novel) is more her sexual assault. I think because it’s a YA novel, you’re probably under the impression that it focuses heavily on the crush aspect, but Ali does a phenomenal job of showing Janna’s various relationships, romantic or otherwise.
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I see. I think my hesitancy comes from reading Missoula in which the victims all completely shut down. It’s not a good thing, but that was a piece of journalism so I take it to be true.
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