A secular surfer girl from Southern California, Krista Bremer never imagined herself married to a devout Muslim. But then she met Ismail, a kind Libyan man who captured her heart. Despite their differences in religion, culture and age, the two fell in love, and when Bremer found out she was expecting a child, they decided to take the leap and become a family.
In elegant prose, Bremer recounts her unlikely love story and explores her discomfort with her husband's cultural and spiritual norms. She wonders at the restrictions of Ramadan and blushes in embarrassment as Ismail haggles with a disabled man selling cheap sunglasses in a Libyan market. Eventually, she faces the challenges of raising two children with Arabic names in the American South, wrestling with her daughter's request for a headscarf and realizing that a neighbor's comment about "diversity" is aimed squarely at her family.
Though Bremer's deep love for her husband is evident, he often comes across as the saintly Other, his calm demeanor standing in stark contrast to her frustrations. She draws deft portraits of his Libyan relatives, especially his brothers, but portrayed in a crowd, the family's image slides into stereotype. Keenly aware of her economic and cultural privilege, Bremer is still sometimes blind to her own ignorance on issues such as the role of women in Libyan culture.
Despite these flaws, Bremer's memoir is a thought-provoking exploration of the deep foreignness of marriage, and a moving portrait of love, tolerance and family. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams