An intimate graphic memoir about an American girl growing up with her Egyptian fatherâs new family, forging unexpected bonds and navigating adolescence in an unfamiliar countryâfrom the award-winning author of I Was Their American Dream.
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âWhat a joy it is to read Malaka Gharibâs It Wonât Always Be Like This, to have your heart expertly broken and put back together within the space of a few panels, to have your wonder in the world restored by her electric mind.ââMira Jacob, author of Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations
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ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Book Riot
Itâs hard enough to figure out boys, beauty, and being cool when youâre young, but even harder when youâre in a country where you donât understand the language, culture, or social norms.
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Nine-year-old Malaka Gharib arrives in Egypt for her annual summer vacation abroad and assumes it'll be just like every other vacation she's spent at her dad's place in Cairo. But her father shares news that changes everything: He has remarried. Over the next fifteen years, as she visits her father's growing family summer after summer, Malaka must reevaluate her place in his life. All that on top of maintaining her coolness!
Malaka doesn't feel like she fits in when she visits her dad--she sticks out in Egypt and doesn't look anything like her fair-haired half siblings. But she adapts. She learns that Nirvana isn't as cool as Nancy Ajram, that there's nothing better than a Fanta and a melon-mint hookah, and that her new stepmother, Hala, isn't so different from Malaka herself.
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It Wonât Always Be Like This is a touching time capsule of Gharibâs childhood memoriesâeach summer a fleeting moment in timeâand a powerful reflection on identity, relationships, values, family, and what happens when it all collides.