Fencer jumped off the desk and awarded us with his you-got-it stance: hands on his corduroy hips, legs apart, face beaming. Yes, or, to put it more precisely, you can say that it looks like the majority of those countries follow Islam. Anything else? Zee-naab? Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how “bad” Muslims are. Meet Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, she isn’t bad. She’s angry.

You mean, Shut up, Zayneb! Don’t make a scene, Zayneb! I put my hand on the door handle. Can I get out? I’ll just walk home like I always do." The way I jolted hearing a Deep Manly voice suddenly fill my ears when my audiobook switched to Adam’s chapter...... An oddity: whatever gives you pause. Like the fact that there are hateful people in the world. Like Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how “bad” Muslims are. The sight stilled the tears that had begun pooling. I blinked them away and concentrated on boring more holes in Fencer’s shoes. Zayneb is a Muslim girl of Pakistani and Caribbean descent. After going head to head with her extremely Islamophobic social studies teacher, she is sent to Qatar to visit her aunt to cool down. On the plane ride over, she is seated next to an Islamophobic woman, whose loud protest at being seated next to Zayneb is rewarded by a move to first class. It isn't all bad, though - she has an empty seat to herself, now, and a cute boy on the plane smiles at her.

Friends & fellow readers: I have finished writing the book. It is a book full of pain, love, anger, love, joy, and soul -- so much of it being the stuff we Muslims hold inside. i LOVE the characters so much. zayneb and her stubbornness, her heated personality. her passion for justice and how she took no crap from anyone, what a legend. Heartfelt, honest, and featuring characters readers will fall in love with, this is sure to become a beloved book for many. Zayneb is a bit hot headed, but passionate and driven to succeed and accomplish and you will find it easy to root for her and understand her struggles as a hijabi muslim women. She is determined to not stand for injustice and to use her voice when it matters. While Adam, the ultimate sweetheart, balances her out perfectly, being more stoic and calm. Both him and his relationship with his younger sister Hannah are adorable. The fact that he also is a convert was wonderful and I liked how that was included in the story. Adam's struggle with coming to terms with his illness, but still wanting to live life at it's fullest and find his place in this world was very heartfelt. I don’t think me being a muslim and myself would’ve survived in a place where a zero to none understanding and hatred towards my faith was palpable. I live in a country where the majority of the people are muslims. Though I couldn’t comprehend the enormity of discrimination Zayneb received, it broke my heart and made me angry to read about it. I’m a pretty much ‘chill’ person. I hate conflicts so I’ll try to avoid them at any costs. Sometimes it was annoying to see how Zayneb would get so worked up about something. But it was also admirable that she never hesitated to speak up and wouldn’t ever let anyone disrespect and wrong her.

Okay, I said, smiling my smile of deadly politeness. I’d recently learned that smiling calm-evilly in the face of haters, well, stranger haters, gets them more inflamed. The book follows Zayneb and Adam’s journal entries–both the marvels and oddities of their time together and as they come to terms with the various parts of their lives that are tangled up.adam and his caring, sweet personality. this boy is so soft, his whole being is just caring about his little sister and worrying about his father, my smol son.

Ayaan had alerted me to Fencer before I entered his class this semester. There are only a few Muslims at Alexander Porter High, so we’ve gotten into this looking-out-for-each-other thing.The whole idea of the book was to be realistic fiction of two persons who were both struggling with life's unpleasant stuff (like health issues and social stigma) and somehow, they manage to find each other and get to fall in love. In a beautiful and simple way. Mom looked at flight options, and you could leave tomorrow afternoon if we drive you to Chicago. Auntie Natasha said instead of moping here, you should spend the next week with her, before Mom joins you guys. This is a beautiful, complex, and important book. I hope that all libraries will get this on their shelves and on display. A wonderful story that centers the Muslim experience and shows the power of anger, peace, and connection. Love from A to Z highlights the macro and microaggressions that Muslim people especially face on a daily basis. It’s hard enough when you know you’re unwelcome by strangers who know nothing about you; it’s harder still when it comes from people you want to be friends with. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, and I really admire Zayneb for always standing up for what’s right despite all of that.

This is definitely a very romance-centered book, so if you’re not into that, this might not be for you. (In fact, the opening quote is, “This is a love story. You’ve been warned.”) But I was in the mood for a light, cute romance, and this book definitely delivered on that; I thought Adam and Zayneb’s relationship was well-developed, especially for being a meet-cute, and I smiled so many times while listening to the audiobook. The only reason we’ve decided to give Miss Malik a week’s suspension instead—which will go into her records, by the way—is due to her exemplary academic record over the years. I’ll see this as a terrible, terrible decision she’s made. Mr. Fencer agrees with me on this. Her voice hardened again. But give me one more thing to make me reconsider, Miss Malik, and we may be seeing your college future at stake. I will not hesitate to make that so. I honestly never thought I'd ever get the chance to read a book like this. My heart is so full and I'm so grateful to have been given the chance to read and review this. I think every Muslim will appreciate the effort that was put into this. I hope this book also helps change the perception of Muslims in the world right now. Because I read this and I felt represented like never before. It brings tears to my eyes just typing this. I want the world to read this book and see things from our point of view. See the way we live and how it's so unlike what is shown on the media today.As they start spending time together, Adam and Zayneb share a common set of values on how they'll behave -- no kissing, no touching, no sexting. Do you think it's a good idea to set some ground rules when you begin dating someone? Love from A to Z is one of the most unapologetically Muslim books that I’ve ever read, and I’m so glad it exists. It resonated in chambers of my heart I’d never known existed. There is still an expansiveness in my chest that reminds me of how important voices like these are, for readers like us. This feeling is a language all its own: to reach and find, to be reached for and found, to belong to a mutual certainty. Yeah, I know, not the lightest topics on the planet, but they are real. And this story just shows how are they applied.