Book Review: The Imam’s Daughter by Hannah Shah

rate } ♠♠♠♠
genre } non-fiction | biography | young adult | abuse
release day } 11th May 2010
acquired } 1st February 2012
publisher } Zondervan
format } hardcover
isbn } 9780310325758
pages } 281 pages
source } bought
age group } pg 18+
interest } G | pg 18+
awards } -
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The Imam’s Daughter
by Hannah Shah

Via Goodreads
Hannah Shah is an Imam's daughter. She lived the life of a devout Muslim in a family of Pakistani Muslims in England, but behind the front door, she was a caged butterfly. For many years, her father abused her in the cellar of their home.

At sixteen, she discovered a plan to send her to Pakistan for an arranged marriage, and she gathered the courage to run away. Relentlessly hunted by her angry father and brothers, who were intent on executing an 'honor' killing, she moved from house to house in perpetual fear to escape them.

Over time, she converted to Christianity and was able to live and marry as she wished.
Hannah found the courage to live her life free from shame, free from religious intolerance, and free from the abuse that haunted her childhood.
This is a remarkable true story of how a young girl escaped a life of torture ... a story you won't forget.

My 2 Cents
Covers. There are a few different covers for this title and all of them intrigues me. This is however the most what I could say “nice”. She looked happy in this cover. This book has two other covers.

This other cover has a child on it, looking all lonely and intimidated. Enough by itself in making you want to pick it up and read what is wrong.

The other cover looked  more grown up and has that look in her eyes, the hidden determination but lost.

Both has the power to entice the reader to pick it up and read.

Now let’s talk about this book. I admit, I have befallen by the title itself. Imam. The head of a small Islamic community. What can go wrong with that right? Wrong! I read the back summary and that was just so heart wrenching.

It’s actually hard to read. Not because it’s a bad book, the people in it are bad. I feel sorry for Hannan (Hannah’s Muslim name) for growing up in such a household and community.

I hope nobody would read this book and say that’s how Muslims are in real life.

Her father tarnished the good name of the Islamic religion. He’s a hypocrite. An arrogant fool! A rapist! An abuser! An ignorant! He doesn’t represent the Islamic world. It saddens me how so brainwashed everybody is in Hannah’s life, that nobody in her own community is willing to help her (except for her best friends) Her brothers refused to helped her when their father raped her nor beat their mother. it appalled me to read her mother seemed to be relieved Hannah got beaten and rape by her husband, so he won’t attack her.

I feel sorry Hannan felt she no choice but leave her own religion just because she’s escaping from her own life, terrified by her own family and her own community just to save herself. It left me angry, that even her social worker (the Muslim guy) didn’t help her at all. He’s probably the defining period for her.  

This book left me with that awful after taste at the back of my tongue.