A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi Spoiler-free Review
- laylasbookshelf
- Mar 30, 2019
- 2 min read
A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi is set in 2002 a year after 9/11. we fallow a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl named Shirin attend yet another high school. Shirin is tired of being stereotyped, it was never a surprise when people would give her rude stares, mean comments, and sometimes physical violence; because of her race, religion, and the hijab she wears. So she doesn't let anyone in, doesn't even try anymore. she spends most of her time break dancing with her brother and listening to music.
But then one day in biology she meets Ocean James. He's the only person who is nice to her, and it terrifies her. It feels like Shirin and Ocean come from two separate worlds. Shirin has been building this big wall her whole life and its hard for her to tear it down.
Overall I give this book about a 4.5 I honestly really enjoyed. this book has the power to make you feel so many things and was defiantly really relatable in so many different ways. This book was written from personal experience, it was inspired by Tahereh Mafi's own teenage life living in this time and being Muslim, making this book so relatable and accurate. even though it was written in 2002 I still felt like everything that was going on in this book was still relatable in this time.
Shirin is one of the most amazingly written characters I have ever read. you could tell that the author really went deep with this character. The story is told in the first person so I could really know the thoughts of this character with everything happening around her. She appears to others (in the book) as this strong, powerful girl, and she is that but there is a different side to her that deep and hurting that makes me love her so much. She has this amazing character arc in the book were she totally switches her mindset and makes her more powerful and amazing.
Ocean is literally one of my favorite male book characters of all time. We get to learn about him so much, he never gives up and fights for what he believes in. I feel like everything about him is amazing and I love him so much. I can't really tell you that much about him because that would spoil the book for you but we get to learn more about him as we read more.
The amazing thing about this book is how Tahereh Mafi is able to describe this amazing teenage love between two beautiful people. We get to see the two of them meet then become friends then start to be more than that. I really was in love with the plot and how I felt like everything flowed really nicely from one day to another. The love was pretty instant but I felt like it was well done and still really beautiful to read.
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