All your insecurities about being a teenager and an adult can be found here, as well as racial discrimination. Sometimes some passages were hard to read and I had to re-read them and read between the lines.
I don't know where to start. I don't know how I can write anything that could do justice to this book.
I was arrested with the first line from this novel. Although it was a simple line, it immediately revealed all was not well.
I respect folks who can bring a novel to fruition in any form, so I don't write this negative review lightly. I picked this book up at the library solely on the strength of the intriguing title (being of similar ethnic background) as I chased down my kid.
This is the first novel that I've read which deals with adolescent female sexuality in a way that is honest and realistic. Though still child-like in her thoughts and behavior, Jasira's body has nonetheless matured into that of an adult woman.
I found the writing itself very compelling and finished the entire book in one sitting- something I almost never do. I found her characterization of Jasira, right down to her sometimes pseudo-innocent explanations of her relations with older men to be a pretty spot on look at the way many teen girls view the world.
Wow! Towelhead was a wonderful book I simply couldn't put down.
Alicia Erian is a talented writer. So, what went wrong with this novel?
As noted by other reviewers, Erian's (and her editor's) apparent ignorance of the true location of Lebanon is amazing. Other than that, the book is a marvel.
Erian's teenage protagonist, Jasira, manages 300 pages of first-person narration without revealing much at all about herself except that it feels good to press her legs together. Here we have a 13-year-old girl in a precocious body who turns the heads of grown men, yet seems to live in a social and cultural vacuum.
Wow--TOWELHEAD's reviews on here have been pretty disparate, to say the least. I guess that's why I have to throw in my .
This book is about offering facile stereotypes to a specific type of reader. The book lacks literary intellect and is very hard to complete.
I can't imagine anyone other than an oversexed adolescent enjoying this book. I don't consider myself a prude, but page after page of a thirteen year old's oral sex, etc.
I don't understand the reviews which say the characters are not fleshed out. The point of view is that of a 13-year-old girl, and that age SEES other people very one-dimensionally.
Plenty of reviewers have given succinct descriptions of "Towelhead" so I'll just list my objections. That there is no atmosphere.
