Publisher's Weekly Review
Packed with self-deprecating humor and charming witticisms, Ahmad's debut is a poignantly honest and intimate memoir recounting his early struggles with race, religion, and relationships. Having emigrated as an infant from Pakistan to England, Ahmad grew up consumed with conflicting desires to adapt to his Western surroundings while maintaining his family's Muslim beliefs, as when he wonders, "What happens to people who believe in one of the wrong religions? Hey, I'm only seven. I shouldn't have to worry like this." Ahmad's comically fruitless obsession with marrying Janice, his long-time crush, leads him to "never discuss religion" and "rarely mention Pakistan," lest she "think of [him] as `different' and derail [their] imminent romance," and when he tells her that his family doesn't "really do Christmas," he fears her reaction to what she must deem "something strange and sinister.below the outer mask of suntanned middle-class English Conservatism." Throughout growing pains (most of the book covers the first 25 years of the author's life) and his efforts to become like James Bond, Ahmad consistently zeroes in on laughs and heartfelt revelations about the nature of faith and individuality. Though Ahmad crams the most recent 20 years of his life into roughly as many pages, his story remains an enjoyable and hilarious Bildungsroman. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
As a Pakistani immigrant kid in Britain, Imran knows he is different from his white Christian classmates, and he hears the racist rants as he strives to be normal and fit in. Told year by year from childhood through graduate school, until he makes it with a corporate job, this memoir is sometimes too repetitive and detailed. But the wry, self-deprecating, present-tense narrative holds you, not only with Ahmad's hilarious misunderstandings and failures (he does not make medical school; he does not get the gorgeous girl) but also with his essential questions about religion and culture and what it means to fit in. Yes, he hates the Christian evangelists who try to convert him, but dare he go for the heady freedom of the Western world? He resists arranged marriage, but romantic love does not work out, either. Just as gripping are his insider's attacks on the superstition and prejudice and stupidity of the inauthentic Islamic extremists who do not know the Qur'an. For him Islam is about love, peace, forgiveness.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2010 Booklist
