An Emotion of Great Delight

By: Tahereh Mafi

Narrated by: Lanna Joffrey

From best-selling and National Book Award-nominated author Tahereh Mafi comes a stunning novel about love and loneliness, navigating the hyphen of dual identity, and reclaiming your right to joy - even when you’re trapped in the amber of sorrow.

It’s 2003, several months since the US officially declared war on Iraq, and the American political world has evolved. Tensions are high, hate crimes are on the rise, FBI agents are infiltrating local mosques, and the Muslim community is harassed and targeted more than ever. Shadi, who wears hijab, keeps her head down. She's too busy drowning in her own troubles to find the time to deal with bigots.

Shadi is named for joy, but she’s haunted by sorrow. Her brother is dead, her father is dying, her mother is falling apart, and her best friend has mysteriously dropped out of her life.

And then, of course, there’s the small matter of her heart-

It’s broken.

Shadi tries to navigate her crumbling world by soldiering through, saying nothing. She devours her own pain, each day retreating farther and farther inside herself until finally, one day, everything changes.

She explodes.

An Emotion of Great Delight is a searing look into the world of a single Muslim family in the wake of 9/11. It’s about a child of immigrants forging a blurry identity, falling in love, and finding hope - in the midst of a modern war.

©2021 Tahereh Mafi (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Meh at best

It’s like it stops mid book, next to nothing is resolved and the summary of the book isn’t really accurate at all

Angsty teen - misrepresentation of Islam

[April 4, 2020] Joy... happiness?
[May 26, 2021] The character's name Shadi which means Happy in Farsi but in Arabic شادي it's for males and it means a singer with a beautiful voice, it could be applied to birds and humans, if you want to name a female we add a ة and it becomes شادية.

[June 2, 2021] That's a first! I didn't like this book. I really disliked Shadi. First time I didn’t enjoy a book by Tahereh. I found the book full of nonsense sometimes and at other times full of pain and unreasonable anger. When I say unreasonable I mean the true anger should not be on her father. I must add that no, there's no mistake in translating Quran, God is a He, I'm an Arabic speaker.

Shadi is an angry teen, she places are her sadness on others, her siblings, her parents, and her best friend. I found her weak, passive, and very pessimistic. First, that girl isn't her best friend, any friend who has a HUGE problem with you being with their sibling is a red light. Secondly, her dad has every right to be sad and mad at his son, the guy was bad. In Islam, we have this story in Quran about a couple who loses their son early, the conclusion it's better for them, God wouldn't have taken that boy after the father was mad at him unless he was a bad boy. If your faith doesn't allow you to see that as Shadi is blinded by anger, she shouldn't have wished her dad dead, the mother is completely dependent on him.

My problem with Americanized foreigners isn't that they feel patriotic to the country they live in (that's just human nature), is that they get mad when local people say they don't belong. Well, so what if you don't? You can't belong to a land fully when the country isn't the same as how you were raised, or your values and religion are making you an enemy of the local people even if you were born there. I understand how the media intensified that, but living in a country that vocalizes hatred so publicly to Muslims should make that feeling stop or at least live in caution. One's civic duty and nationally isn't always in sync, ask any Palestinian. Living in a time where passports are bought doesn't guarantee loyalty just a fresh start. Even if you like your new home, it doesn't mean the locals are hospitable, that's why it's very complexed for Muslims to blend in a foreign society, not because they don't want to, but because they are labeled "not local", "different", "dangerous", and so on; if, as Shadi implied in the attack on her in the street, you can't fight back, then are you really a part of that society? You will always be the "other". When the country's laws don't protect you because you are the "other", is it really where you belong?

In any case, I felt that the book ended when it was becoming sweeter. Which is sad.