Ten Things I Hate About Me - Randa Abdel-Fatta

I've been reading this book since yesterday, and it makes me want to go to school, stop in the hallway, and bang my head repeatedly against a row of lockers. What's the issue? The book is about a girl, sophomore in high school, who is a Lebanese-Muslim who is hiding her cultural identity from her classmates in Sydney. Yes, as in Australia. So every other page the girl complains about her father's unrelenting rules - "He refuses to let me go to the formal! My life is over!" Big whoop. I'm not going to the junior prom - I didn't even bother asking my mom about it. Mixing of genders, probably some close dancing, people trying to sneak in drugs and alcohol. Not for me. Again, in the book, "Don't you trust me? Why don't you trust me? You don't appreciate me!" Right. My mom trusts me, no doubt about that. She doesn't trust the people around me. And, quite honestly, when hormones, evil thoughts, and booze (even the possibility of it) are brought into the equation, neither do I. And then there's bellydancing and Muslims drinking alcohol and dating. Yes, that's sooo Islamic. Please, please, note the sarcasm there.  But what bothers me the most in this book is the fact that this girl just sits there listening to her "friends" trash-talking her heritage and does absolutely nothing about that. She says her father shouldn't care about what other people think - why can't she take her own advice? I'm a Pakistani Muslim, and believe me when I say I'm proud of it. What have I got to be ashamed of? I go to school like everyone else, I abhor violence, and I have my own personal hobbies and interests. Oh no, but what about the Taliban? Yes, the Taliban has everything to do with me just because I'm of Pakistani origin. Not. 9/11? So many lives lost, and in the so-called name of religion. Let me say this: accusing all Muslims of being terrorists is like blaming the entire town for something a criminal  - a single person - who lives there did. Blame an entire group of people with a religious affiliation in common for what a couple of crazies who got their hands on weapons did. Make any sense? Not in the least. Believe me, we Muslims are just as abhorred by it as anyone else, probably even more since it says right in the Qur'an that there is nothing more precious than human life and killing one person is sin enough to equal killing the whole of mankind (and conversely saving one life is equal to saving the whole of mankind - so let's save more people). So how did that message get mixed up? Either some people didn't read that line - maybe not even the whole Qur'an - or somehow managed to completely misread it.