A Map of Home

Publisher’s Comments:

Nidali, the rebellious daughter of an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, narrates her story from her childhood in Kuwait, her early teenage years in Egypt (to where she and her family fled the 1990 Iraqi invasion), to her family’s last flight to Texas. Nidali mixes humor with a loving and vibrant celebration of an eccentric middle-class family in the Arab world, and this perspective keeps her buoyant through the hardships she encounters: the humiliation of going through a checkpoint on a visit to her father’s home on the West Bank; the fights with her father, who wants her to become a famous professor and stay away from boys; the end of her childhood as Iraq invades Kuwait on her thirteenth birthday; and the scare she gives her family when she runs away from home.

I had high hopes for this one, mainly because it was set partly in Kuwait and Egypt and I thought that would be interesting.  I tend to enjoy books set in other countries, especially if the story is able to convey the culture.  However, Nidali’s life seemingly consisted only of her dysfunctional home life and school.  With an occasional visit to see her cousin.  Oh, and a trip to a pizza parlor.  So I didn’t experience a whole lot of Kuwait.  In fact, it almost could have been the US (except for the section describing the war with Iraq.)  Palestine was a bit more descriptive, although it was a brief trip.  After the family moves to Texas and Nidali begins to increasingly defy her father, there is a bit more of the outside world.  But this book really focuses on Nidali’s home life.  And her obsession with masturbating.  I could’ve done without that.  In the end, this book was nothing what I expected and the constant fighting between family members was wearisome.