Review: A Very Large Expanse of Sea

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's a very different kind of book from Tahereh Mafi, being a contemporary romance - well, not exactly contemporary. It's set in 2002 and very steeped in its time period, with computers that felt like dinosaurs even back then, only one Harry Potter movie in theaters - and how was Shirin to know it was almost three hours long? - and costly cell phone minutes and texts, and no fancy touch screen models either.

But of course, Mafi takes us into a side of 2002 most Americans would have you forget - the upsurge of anti-Muslim racism post-9/11, which Shirin, our Persian-American hijabi protagonist, has to deal with almost on the daily, and it's awful to witness. She has a tough skin - her hijab being, for her, an addition to her armor - but under that skin, so much verbal and physical violence gets. But Shirin has a good network of friends and family to help her cope. Her brother Navid and his diverse band of b-boy buddies - a crew in which she loses no time becoming a pretty full-fledged member herself. And Ocean James, the gentle and loving white boy for whom she finds herself falling in love, whose story arc is compelling on a very strong level too. No spoilers, of course, but after Shirin, he's a very close second on the list of most dynamic characters in the book.

It's actually not the first story I've read centering Muslim teens in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Most of these, though, have been small pieces which I've read from classmates in my university's creative writing program. One, in particular, was strongly inspired by the author's own life experiences growing up Muslim in Oakland, and I sincerely hope that one day it becomes published in full - it'd make a great companion piece to this book. In the meantime, though, I found this one to be a great companion piece to Darius the Great Is Not Okay - having gotten both these #ownvoices Persian-American YA novels from the library in the same week, they simply begged to be read and enjoyed back-to-back.

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