Home Is Not a Country

January 1, 2021

Gr 6 Up-Sudanese American poet Elhillo invites readers into her dreamlike story of 15-year-old Nima, who struggles with loneliness and the possibilities of the road not taken. Growing up in the United States, Nima wonders what life would be like if she spoke Arabic fluently, if her father hadn't died, if her mother had not left a country where everyone had dark eyes, sepia-toned skin, and textured hair like her, or if she had been given a name she felt she could live up to. In this novel in verse, Elhillo shows readers the beauty of what could have been, and the pain of being labeled a terrorist. When Nima's best friend, Haitham, is attacked, a series of dangerous events unfold, yet readers are given no real resolution. Told in three parts, the flow is a bit disjointed, but overall this is a quick and engaging story. Fans of Elizabeth Acevedo's Clap When You Land or Samira Ahmed's Love, Hate & Other Filters will enjoy this look at identity and acceptance. VERDICT A unique verse novel that looks at how our past choices influence identity and sense of belonging.-Monisha Blair, Rutgers Univ., NJ

Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2021
Elhillo's strikingly original novel in searingly honest, staccato verse, nearly all in lowercase, showcases the difficult realities of working-class immigrant families. Nima is a sensitive Muslim teenager, daughter of an immigrant mother, whose life is marked by the absence of a father she never knew, of friends (except one), and of belonging and feeling at home. Haunted by "sepia" tinted memories "of a country i've never seen / outside a photograph," bullied at school, and excluded by her Arabic-speaking peers, she grapples with a series of what-ifs. A "nostalgia monster" hungry for old photographs and retro Arabic music and films, Nima yearns for a different life, one lived in her imagination as her "ghost self," Yasmeen. When her only friend is hospitalized after a hate crime, she goes into a tailspin. In a magical realism sequence, she encounters corporeal Yasmeen and travels through space and time to see her parents together, uncovering truths that help recalibrate her life. While Elhillo's novel draws on her Sudanese heritage, she leaves the family's country of origin unnamed. Her richly imagined settings bring into sharp focus the nuances of a fractured identity in many diasporic communities. An immersive experience of the intersectionality of gender, class, race, religion, and identity. Sadaf Siddique

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from March 1, 2021
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* Exploring themes of finding oneself and finding home after immigration, Elhillo's sophisticated debut, Home Is Not a Country, will entrance readers with its deft use of language and blurred divide between reality and possibility. Nearly 15, Nima can't understand what made her mother leave her beautiful homeland to raise her then-unborn child in the U.S. Photos sparkling with laughter and songs crooned in Arabic fill Nima's apartment and capture the teen's imagination as she contemplates how much happier her mother would be in another country or with a different daughter, Yasmeen. This imagined daughter of love and beauty, named for her mother's favorite flower, becomes a fixation in Nima's mind, sister and alterego perfectly bound as the person Nima should have been. These sullen musings become unexpectedly real after Nima's best and only friend, Haitham, is attacked--presumably for his race--in a parking lot and hospitalized. A fight with her mother on the way to visit him sends Nima running off, surprisingly stepping into her mother's past with Yasmeen as her guide. There, Nima observes what really drove her mother from her home, as the girl finds bittersweet answers to many of her questions and receives harsh truths from the mouth of Yasmeen. These revelations act as a much-needed awakening for Nima, who is able to make slight changes to the past that lead to a happier present, though none more than the metamorphosis she herself undergoes in this surreal crash-course in perspective, agency, and self-love.

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Starred review from January 1, 2021
What happens when both the place you come from and the place you are feel distant and unaccepting? These are the questions Nima sets out to answer. A 14-year-old, working-class, Muslim, immigrant kid raised by a single mother in suburban America--that's Nima. They left their unnamed homeland (contextual clues point to Sudan) in pursuit of a better life, one that didn't seem to find them. But Nima's mind often wanders back to her roots, to the Arabic songs she listens to on cassette and old photographs of her parents--things she longs to be a part of. At school, Nima is bullied for her accented English, her obvious poverty, and her mother's hijab. Haitham, the neighbor boy who's more like a sibling, goes to the same school and is Nima's only friend. But one day Haitham is beaten up in a hate crime, winding up in the hospital hooked up to machines. The abyss between Nima and her mother begins to grow as Nima learns more about her father's absence. Elhillo's novel, which contains light fantastical elements, tells the story of a Muslim girl traversing post-9/11 America with the baggage of a past she does not yet fully understand. The vivid imagery creates a profound sensory experience, evoking intense emotions in a story that will resonate with readers from many backgrounds. Movingly unravels themes of belonging, Islamophobia, and the interlocking oppressions thrust upon immigrant women. (Verse novel. 12-18)

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2021
Elhillo's strikingly original novel in searingly honest, staccato verse, nearly all in lowercase, showcases the difficult realities of working-class immigrant families. Nima is a sensitive Muslim teenager, daughter of an immigrant mother, whose life is marked by the absence of a father she never knew, of friends (except one), and of belonging and feeling at home. Haunted by "sepia"-tinted memories "of a country i've never seen / outside a photograph," bullied at school, and excluded by her Arabic-speaking peers, she grapples with a series of what-ifs. A "nostalgia monster" hungry for old photographs and retro Arabic music and films, Nima yearns for a different life, one lived in her imagination as her "ghost self," Yasmeen. When her only friend is hospitalized after a hate crime, she goes into a tailspin. In a magical realism sequence, she encounters corporeal Yasmeen and travels through space and time to see her parents together, uncovering truths that help recalibrate her life. While Elhillo's novel draws on her Sudanese heritage, she leaves the family's country of origin unnamed. Her richly imagined settings bring into sharp focus the nuances of a fractured identity in many diasporic communities. An immersive experience of the intersectionality of gender, class, race, religion, and identity.

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)