Review: A Very Large Expanse of Sea

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

A surprising fresh read. Okay, I didn’t enjoy the awkward, angry moments of denial, but I found myself truly engrossed in a book I didn’t expect to find much interest in reading. My preface is that I have read two books in the past year by Muslim women; one was from Sudan and the other from Saudi Arabia. One broke from Islam while the other broke from tradition but remained committed to Islam. Both received death threats that were very serious.

In this book, a 16 year old American girl of Persian descent chooses to wear a hijab because she loves the way it makes her feel, gives her a modicum of control - she gets to choose who sees more than her face and hands and who gets to see her hair. She is Muslim. She is American. People say stupid stuff to her but nobody really sees her. Until someone finally does. He’s authentic, handsome and prepared to face criticism for loving a Muslim girl. A girl who has lived with bigotry and racism and even violence. The real beauty of the novel (a sort of autobiography of the author) comes at the end as she truly recognizes how fickle high school really is. Also how she is also guilty of categorizing people without getting to know them. It is a sweet and tender high school love story wrought with challenges I hadn’t considered. But it made me think.

I belong to a Christian church that is prominent in Utah. It was not difficult to live my life with the standards I chose and wear my conservative clothes. Correction: Conservative but still mostly socially acceptable. On the other hand, what people caught the attention of the nation? Those on the more extreme end of off shoots of my church. We are not the same church yet we began with the same foundation. What if I was judged against the standard of the families on Sister Wives? Or the gingham dress wearing woman with the intricately braided long hair now famous for tax evasion, misusing food stamps, and child brides? There are many individuals in both sects that are very good people yet they are saddled with some extremists.

I am part of the mainstream church but, outside my community my ways would seem weird. I don’t wear a hijab but I do wear other clothing items that provide a cushion for me. I have attended a cousin’s alcoholic infused pool party in another country, garnering the attention of the most beautiful guy I had met that summer. Our story did not end harmoniously. He got drunker, I stayed 100% sober and assumed that he would surmise my adherence to my standards that I wouldn’t slip with my big one. At the end of the evening, the people at the party paired up and prepared to move the party to a quieter venue. I only realized then that he had been grooming me and was looking forward to activities I did not do as an unmarried woman. It was excruciating to spell out, in detail, that I was, in fact, a virgin by choice and that would not change just because he had wasted all those hours under another assumption.

Hijab or not, stupid assumptions have been made and voiced. You don’t dance then? Uh, yes, I do. I’m not a breakdancer but I’m pretty good dancer.

Regardless of my own experiences, I simply had never imagined a hijab wearing Muslim directly after the 9/11 attacks. This story gives a taste of bigotry, ignorance, fear, and the general lack of simply getting to know another human being despite perceived differences. Truth be known, we would find much more in our commonalities than our differences.

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