Jameela Green Ruins Everything

De: Zarqa Nawaz

Narrado por: Aizzah Fatima

Jameela Green only has one wish.

To see her memoir on the New York Times bestseller list. When her dream doesn’t come true, she seeks spiritual guidance at her local mosque. New imam and recent immigrant Ibrahim Sultan is appalled by Jameela’s shallowness, but agrees to assist her on one condition: that she perform a good deed.

Jameela reluctantly accepts his terms, kicking off a chain of absurd and unfortunate events. When the person the two do-gooders try to help is recruited by a terrorist group called D.I.C.K.—Dominion of the Islamic Caliphate and Kingdoms—the federal authorities become suspicious of Ibrahim, and soon after, the imam mysteriously disappears.

Certain that the CIA have captured Ibrahim for interrogation via torture, Jameela decides to set off on a one-woman operation to rescue him. Her quixotic quest soon finds her entangled in an international plan targeting the egomaniacal leader of the terrorist organization—a scheme that puts Jameela, and countless others, including her hapless husband and clever but disapproving daughter, at risk.

For fans of Where'd You Go, Bernadette? and My Sister, the Serial Killer, Jameela Green Ruins Everything is a whip-smart black comedy about the price of success, and a biting look at what has gone wrong with American foreign policy in the Middle East. It is a compulsively engaging, yet unexpectedly touching novel about one woman's search for meaning and connection, and about the lengths we go for those we love.

©2022 Zarqa Nawaz (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

An intelligent and whacky satire

I can’t quite give it 5 stars, because of the silliness of the story and the terrible East London accent attempted by the narrator, but I did enjoy this book a lot. Most importantly, I learned a surprising amount about the Islamic faith, the experience of immigrant Muslims, and about the politics of terrorism.