Saints and Misfits

Sometimes, it is hard to speak up and be a Moxie Girl.

In Saints and Misfists, by S. K. Ali, we meet Jana Yusuf, who is dealing with somone who is making unwanted advances.

Publisher’s Summary:
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.

This is another book that seems appropriate to the times. This is Ali’s debut novel and though it does a great job presenting Janna’s Muslim family as ordinary, it does take a while to get going. Fortunately, Janna is a likeable character and I really cared about her situation. People wonder why the women making accusations in the news didn’t say anything at the time. Janna helps us understand their vulnerability and fear.