An Emotion of Great Delight
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From bestselling and National Book Award–nominated author Tahereh Mafi comes a stunning novel about love and loneliness, navigating the hyphen of dual identity, and reclaiming your right to joy—even when you’re trapped in the amber of sorrow.
It’s 2003, several months since the US officially declared war on Iraq, and the American political world has evolved. Tensions are high, hate crimes are on the rise, FBI agents are infiltrating local mosques, and the Muslim community is harassed and targeted more than ever. Shadi, who wears hijab, keeps her head down.
She's too busy drowning in her own troubles to find the time to deal with bigots.
Shadi is named for joy, but she’s haunted by sorrow. Her brother is dead, her father is dying, her mother is falling apart, and her best friend has mysteriously dropped out of her life. And then, of course, there’s the small matter of her heart—
It’s broken.
Shadi tries to navigate her crumbling world by soldiering through, saying nothing. She devours her own pain, each day retreating farther and farther inside herself until finally, one day, everything changes.
She explodes.
An Emotion of Great Delight is a searing look into the world of a single Muslim family in the wake of 9/11. It’s about a child of immigrants forging a blurry identity, falling in love, and finding hope—in the midst of a modern war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mafi (A Very Large Expanse of Sea) follows Iranian American hijabi Shadi as she struggles to overcome mounting loss following the death of her brother, Mehdi, after 9/11. Shadi, her sister Shayda, and their parents grieve in isolation; as their father suffers two heart attacks and their mother approaches a full collapse, the siblings' already fraught relationship grows even tenser. Emotionally cut off by her best friend, fellow Iranian American Zahra—who resents Shadi's growing romance with Zahra's brother, Ali—Shadi feels increasingly forgotten despite Ali's attempts to offer support. Shadi's narration, densely lyrical, even purple, frequently results in confusing metaphors and scenes. Underdeveloped secondary characters, a derogatory and seemingly out-of-character description of the burqa as "those gross tent things the Taliban forces women to wear in Afghanistan," and an abrupt ending that feels disconnected from the novel's larger themes detract from its portrayal of a Muslim family in America in the years after 9/11. Even so, Mafi clearly and movingly illustrates how grief can escalate uncontrollably and seep into every facet of life. Ages 13–up.
