3-1/2 stars, rounded downWhen Jamilah Towfeek started at a new school in grade seven, she saw a chance to change other people’s perception of her from “ethnic” (and possibly “terrorist”) to plain old “Australian.” So she dyed her hair blond, got blue contact lenses, and told everyone her name was Jamie. Now in grade ten, that decision is starting to wear on her. Racism is loud and proud in her school hallways, but how can she speak out when she’s spent so long hiding her identity [...]

To see full review click here10) Have a Main Character That’s a Whiney Titty Baby:Oh, sweet baby Jesus, how I could not stand Jamilah/Jamie.She is such a weak and despicable character.Honestly, I should’ve been warned enough with the premises of how she tries to hide her identity, but it’s even worse than that.There is not one thing I like about this character.I almost felt bad because she has a sexist father. But she’s not mad at him for being sexist so much. Instead, she’s just mad b [...]

eeeeeehhh. I picked up this book on a whim. Maybe it's because I already passed this phase in my life that I didn't find it very relatable. In fact, the main character is quite annoying. You see, I am a Muslim girl growing up (living) in the United States so I get the whole growing up between two cultures thing. On the other hand, I am really disappointed by the portrayal of my religion in this book. Not every Muslim hides their faith and for once I would like to read a book about a girl proud o [...]

This book was good, not great, and a little too simplistic (and coincidental) for me; I imagine that if you're over the age of 12, maybe 13, you'll think the same.The plot revolves around a confused teen named Jamilah. She's a Lebanese Muslim in Australia who's desperately trying to hide her cultural identity from her peers by calling herself "Jamie," dying her hair blonde, wearing blue-tinted contacts, and not inviting ay of her friends over to her house. Her dad forbids her to do practically e [...]

i enjoyed this book. you know, it wasn't like the best thing ever but i thought overall it was pretty good. the characters were well done and the themes are really important (and rarely addressed) so i was able to overlook some plotholes/predictableness that would have annoyed me otherwise. i thought she did a really good job of creating a main character without any self-confidence who's totally embarrassed of her middle-eastern background WITHOUT making her obnoxious. i thought it was good. and [...]

"I'm Lebanese-Muslim. My name's Jamilah, not Jamie. I've been hiding myself for a long time.""So what?"Why the low rating?- most annoying/pathetic/cynical main character- amazingly lame storyline- how to overreact 101- 'sounds like socks on carpet'- no plot twists, or easily foreseeable - two dimensional charactersI could barely comprehend the extent of racism in Australian culture expressed in this book being ethnic myself in Australia. I have friends of every race and culture and they are prou [...]

2.5 stars. There's just something about contemporary books that I find boring, especially when compared to fantasy. So yes, this did bore meI found myself not caring enough about the story and characters to want to keep reading. But I pushed myself to finish it, and I'm glad to say that the last few chapters were more interesting than the rest. I wasn't expecting to love it when I picked it up though, and my feelings are still the same as my expectations before I read it.Jamilah has never expose [...]

Out of the two books that I have read this quarter, I really liked “Ten Things I Hate About Me” by Randa Abdel-Fattah. You go on a journey with your average teenage girl. I really enjoyed this book because in a way I could relate to it and I am 99.9% sure that every girl have, or will at some point in their live will experience what The main Character Jamilah experienced. I would most definitely, highly highly recommend this book to girls ages 14-18 because there is a good message that you c [...]

Reviewed by Sally Kruger aka "Readingjunky" for TeensReadTooAfter the sudden death of her mother years ago, Jamilah and her older brother and sister have been raised by their conservative Lebanese-Muslim father. Being the youngest is not easy, since her older sister, Shereen, is forever finding ways to irritate their father, and her brother, Bilal, is a constant disappointment. It's no wonder that Jamilah has begun to live a double life - one at home and another at school. She has dyed her dark [...]

Ten Things is about me is about a teenager girl from southern Sydney who’s a Lebanese-Muslim and very proud of her cultural identity. She lives two lives and tries so hard to keep them separate. She feels if they collide it would ruin her whole world. She only keeps them a secret because she sees the way other people like her are treated at school and she doesn’t want to seem different in their eyes. At school and in the outside world she is ‘Jamie’, a blonde with an Anglo Aussie backgro [...]

This was a quick read -- relatively light YA fare. Although it deals with issues of identity because of the way that Jamilah hides her Lebanese-Muslim heritage from everyone at school (including standing by while other immigrants are mocked by the most popular guy in high school), the novel never gets terribly serious. An interesting writing device is employed in various chapters of the story, wherein the action and character development is portrayed via an ongoing conversation in the form of an [...]

Jamilah might hate several things about herself, but only one keeps getting brought up.Not fitting in is like leprosy at adolescence. No one wants you on their team. And the nasty daily comments can push any teen into a huge depression. It's no wonder that Jamilah dreams of having her classmate Timothy's courage and just be herself: a Lebanese/Muslim living in Australia. So she bleaches her hair, puts on blue contacts and changes her name to Jamie. And no one "notices." To be honest, although th [...]

I absolutely LOVE this book.I love jamilah and shereen and timothy and bilal and amy and ahhh I've never related this badly to any book before. Everyone read this. Please.

Abdel-Fattah, Randa. 2009. (Pub Jan) TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT ME. . 297.Randa Abdel-Fattah's previous novel, Does My Head Look Big In This?, was one that I was ambivalent about. I found the perspective interesting--a Muslim teen girl who feels caught between cultures: wanting to be true to her faith and family but also wanting to fit in with the popular, beautiful people.Ten Things I Hate About You is similar in theme. We've got a narrator caught between two identies: Jamie and Jamilah. At home, [...]

This is very similar to Abdel-Fattah's first young adult novel Does My Head Look Big In This?, so, unless you read Does My Head and absolutely loved it, there's no big reason to read both. I wasn't as crazy about this one as I was Does My Head but that's possibly b/c I read this second. Both are about Australian teenage girls who struggle with being both Australian and Muslim, both have very likable and amusing protagonists, both have extremely predictable plots (the old "I'm confused about who [...]

The central character of Jamilah/Jamie will be relevant to almost any immigrant girl. She embodies the whole east meets west cultural conflict so well. The duality of her identity is best seen in her two names, struggling between who she has to be at school, and who she is with her family. Much like in The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol has mixed feeling about his name but accepts it in the end. The added context here is the currency of the novel in how it gives the reader a glimpse into Jamil [...]

well the book goes below my expectations a little, TEN THINGS ABOUT ME is about a confused Lebanese Muslim teen she is afraid to show her heritage but i don't know why randa abdel-fattah managed to make me feel that the muslim heritage is something you should be ashamed of, she only focused about the 11september and benladen and Jamie don't want anybody to think that her hobby is to fly planes into buildings and jamilah seems not to be so religious because she don't pray and in the end she kisse [...]

See more of my reviews on The YA Kitten!Diversity Rating: 3 - Closer to RealityRacial-Ethnic: 5 (lots of POC characters)QUILTBAG: 0Disability: 0Intersectionality: 3 (major point is Jamie's dissatisfaction with the lack of freedom she gets as a Muslim girl)Look at this cute cover. Look at the legendary-rom-com-referencing title. Does this book look serious to you? No it does not, and that's how it goes right for your jugular with its talons and shows us anyone who stays silent when someone is bei [...]

This is a better than average teen problem book from an Australian author, perhaps a 7 on the Peachworthiness scale because I like that it deals with a culture for which there hasn't been a lot of representation in YA lit. Yes, a 10th grader who dislikes WAY too many things about herself and can't choose an identity that works at home, with friends, and with boys, a girl that can't decide whether to accept the attentions of a popular A-hole at school or to speak up for the guy who is ridiculed i [...]

In the book “Ten Things I Hate About ME,” by Randa Abdel-Fattah, the main character is Jamilah, or as she wants it pronounced, “Jamie.” Jamilah wants to be popular and beautiful, but she can’t, she has to wear the Hijaib. The Hijaib is a muslium tradition clothing that is worn over the head (only for women to wear) to keep sacred and to not take it off in of public or infront of men. She is forced to wear it because her father is very religious and wants Jamilah to be one too. So, lets [...]

After the last book I read I needed a light read to lift up my mood. Something like a palette cleanser. Thankfully I had my second Randa Abdel-Fattah novel with me to accomplish that task.After reading Randa's debut novel "Does my head look big in this?" I went back to Jarir bookstore specifically to get her second novel, that's how much Ioved the first one. It was a light witty intelligent read filled with ironic laughter. What about the second novel then?Well, it was good and drastically diffe [...]

"Ten Things I Hate About Me"is the second book from Randa Abdel Fattah.Her other book is called"Does My Head Look Big In This?"In this story Abdel Fattah writes about being a tennager and growing up in Ausralia."Ten Things I Hate About Me"is about Jamie, a teenage girl from Sydney in the south west that lives two lives: at school and in the"outside"world she is"Jamie",a blonde girl witha Anglo Aussie background; at home she is"Jamilah"a Lebanese-Muslim who is happy of her Australian culture.Jami [...]

A young teenaged girl in high school in Australia named Jamilah She hides her background from her white friends because she doesn't want them to find out that she has a Lebanese Muslim Background. So she wants to not tell her friends and classmates of her Lebanese background so she dyes her hair blond and wears blue contacts to school and all her friends call her JAMIE not Jamilah!When Jamilah was 9 yrs old her mother died and now she has a father and 1 sister and 1 brother named girl-Sheereen a [...]

Jamilah Towfeek aka Jamie leads a two-faced life, enacting a girl with a split-personality. To jibe with her Australian counterparts, Jamie has dyed her hair blonde, worn contacts in public and has made no real friends pretty much out of the fear of being "discovered". Beneath this wannabe-Caucasian identity though is the real Jamilah: juggling between sunset curfew-rules set by her conservative father, playing in a Muslim band, and loving her Lebanese-Muslim culture (only not being courageous e [...]

I found this while I was working in the library this morning. It seemed interesting, so I checked it out. I actually liked this quite a bit more than I thought I would. Jamie lives a double life, a regular Aussie at school and a Muslim at home. But now her world's starting to fall apart. It's pretty good, and I could definitely see why she was the way she was. My problem? I didn't like that she spent the whole time obeying her dad (unhappily, but she still did) but the one time she didn't, she d [...]

I was in so not interested in this book so I read it so slowly but eventually when I started reading the part when she ( her name is JamieJamilah a Labenese- Musliam girl who dyed her hair blonde put blue eye contact and became a Australian girl to fit in to her school) was texting a boy from her school and didn't know him but knew who he was at school and when her big sister got arrested she needed a lawyer and she told Timothy she needed a lawyer and needed her mother to come in and when she f [...]

The author was pretty ambitious to try to portray all the complexity and all the diversity in a small, accessible book for the teenage/YA market. I think she did a pretty good job. I disliked some of the characters and Jamie's obsessive preoccupation with boys and popularity but I think some of this ws problematised just enough. It was a book about those precarious places in society where everyone is pressuring you but they all have value for you too so you can't just escape.Jamillah wants to ke [...]

3.5--Would definitely recommend it to some of my students.

I started this book the day I received it in the post, it was shiny and pink and oh something I wouldnt usually read, but for islamic fiction I was willing to give it a shot. Ive read a few islamic fictions in the past, namely the triology by umm Zakiyyah, which I thoroughly enjoyed so I was hoping for something equally as entertaining. Alas, I was to be disappointed :(I read the intro with an open mind and clear heart "The novel is the story of Jamie Towfeek, a teenager living in Sydney's weste [...]

Jamilah lives a very confusing life. After her mothers tragic death, she is left with her two older siblings and her extremely strict and religious father. Her older sister Shereen is a strong-willed hippie who will stop at nothing to go against the rules of the government, and her older brother Bilal is the casual high school drop out whose dream is to work in a car garage. Jamilah has always felt that she was the good child, but her father made it seem like she was his biggest challenge. Being [...]