I have many of the same critiques that my good friend Umm Zaid wrote about in her review and I also found myself saying "Yes! exactly! But, no, wait..." over and over again. It is a NEEDED and important book for sure and despite its shortcomings I recommend it to all my convert friends to the extent that my personal copy is getting severely damaged from lending it out so much!

I say it is a needed book because it is essentially a book about one woman's experiences with the pathologies of Muslim communities in the United States and they way they relate to American converts (particularly women), and it is SO IMPORTANT that other sisters who are converts know that they are not alone in their experiences and negative feelings about certain aspects of life in American Muslim communities or within Muslim families. I believe that just letting other converts know that "you are not alone" can be a faith-saver for some people and for that I think it is an important book. The author's comparison between the application of Islam and the application of geometry (the principles of both are true, but just because people don't always apply them correctly doesn't affect the truth of the principles) brilliantly sums up what so many of us need to hear-that the imperfections of our communities should not discourage us from being Muslims from within ourselves. The distinctly American, conversational tone of the writing, complete with sarcastic and humorous statements, make this book all the more comforting in this respect.

However, the fact that the book is written as a personal narrative by the author makes things difficult for me. For starters it makes me feel uncomfortable even discussing the parts of it I disagree with (in some cases strongly so) without feeling like I'm either directly or indirectly backbiting the sister who wrote it, as this book is basically an autobiography. In fact, she is quite courageous in revealing things about herself and her life that may be uncomfortable for her, and my admiration of her willingness to do that makes this issue that much more difficult for me. I think I would have liked to see (or would like to see in the future) a book on this subject done more along the lines of "Daughters of Another Path" where many convert women would be surveyed and asked for narratives so that a diversity of experiences and suggestions can be included, and not just one person's. More issues might have been brought into the book, such as my personal pet-peeve (hinted at but never discussed) which is the bad treatment of children both by Muslim families and the neglect of children in Muslim community centers. Many sisters who become Muslim leave behind a church community in which there are abundant Sunday School, child care, and youth group activities and may be shocked to find that most Muslim communities have absolutely none of this.

This is also an important book particularly for convert sisters who are married to Arab men. The author's own husband is Palestinian and she talks in great detail about her negative experiences with Arab culture and her Arab family's negative reactions to her and other American Muslim women. Again, a great way to feel like you're not alone in your experiences. Convert women who are married to men of other nationalities may not fully understand those sections but may see parallels in their own husbands' respective cultures.

I did feel though that the book had an overall negative slant and at the end I felt like the book stopped at a drop-out from Islamic community life as a whole and an "I give up" attitude without any further suggestions besides a retreat into self. I say this without bias because I myself am in that stage at this writing, but because the book contained virtually no Islamic references for how to go about a retreat into self (at the minimum a bibliography for that purpose would have been nice), I felt an absence of an Islamic awareness or striving towards complete reliance on Allah that I would have liked to see reflected in the book's conclusion.

I also agree with Umm Zaid that the book was significantly lacking in Islamic references for me. It left me feeling that the author had not continued to seek Islamic sources for her spiritual inspiration and self-improvement. There are many, many quotes from English literature and non-Muslim writers and philosophers but I would have liked to see those balanced with parallel quotes and wisdom from Classical Islamic sources. There are many books by Al-Ghazali translated into English now, and an increasing number of English-speaking, American Islamic scholars who address exactly the issues dealt with in this book using Classical Islamic sources, so I was really surprised to find nothing of what I've personally learned from such sources mirrored in the book.

There are also some statements in the book that she did not research before making-such as the claim that Arabic is not a "divine language" and is not any more special than any other language for worship purposes-this is completely untrue and although I sympathize with the author's difficulties in learning Arabic (I know full well that bad teaching methods and lack of resources make it really hard for many people to learn Arabic) I found the author's diatribe against Arabic and attempt to discount the importance of Arabic to be ill-informed and offensive.

So overall, while I have some serious issues with this book, I consider it a good start and a comforting voice in the sea of mostly ridiculous Islamic books which never deal with real issues head-on. I recommend it with a grain of salt.