Does My Head Look Big In This?

[Yasmeen]

The second book I read was Does My Head Look Big In This by Randa Abdel-Fattah. The first thing I learned about this book was the change of a character in the eyes of the main character, even though that character hasn’t changed anything about him. Amal had this casual in-class friendship with Adam back then, but the next semester she started thinking more of him. Suddenly, in chem class, she saw his “veins bulging against his muscles and his shirtsleeves begging for oxygen”.
The second thing I learned about this book was the voice of the speaker changing while talking about each character. Usually, the tone Amal puts in while confronting a character matches the way she feels about that person. Tia is Amal’s enemy and she’s usually not afraid of Tia even though she mocks her constantly about her religion. In the part where Amal was doing wuduh which is washing of limbs and face in the bathroom to be hygienically ready for prayer, Tia asks what she’s doing and after she heard Amal’s answer she specified that she’s not walking on desert. “ I stand up to my full height, one sock off, one sock on. Very dignified,”. I could tell that Amal had that “enough” kind of tone. She silently told us that she’s not scared of Tia, especially with the usage of the words “stand up” and “dignified”.
The third thing I learned about this book was using italic fonts to explain thoughts about moments or imitation of a quote that hasn’t happened to prove a point. When Amal was having internal thoughts of what people were going to ask her if she wore the hijab, “Hey, Amal, want a cheese and bacon fry? Hey, Amal, do you have a camel as a pet?”.