Jarrar is sophisticated and deft, and her impressive debut is especially intriguing considering her clever use of recent Middle East history.” - Booklist In Jarrar’s first novel, the lovable Ammars are talkative, argumentative, and so alive they practically burst off the page. Despite exposure to so much turmoil and divisiveness, the teenager finds she is not unlike other American girls-much to her father’s dismay.” - Ms. “Jarrar’s debut novel is a narrative of otherness. “Nidali’s voice is a winning combination of the detailed observations of a wannabe writer and the snark of an acerbic adolescent, and with her as a tour guide, readers won’t need a map through this spectacular fresh and funny debut novel. Sarcastic essays, Arabic lyrics juxtaposed with American rap, and other anecdotes present cross-cultural observations that are both humorous and wistful.”- Oxford American

Jarrar’s prose is as delightfully dry and intense as her main character. “In Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home, Nidali, a refugee from Saddam’s bombs, finds a Texan adolescence dizzying to navigate with her Egyptian-Grecian-Palestinian background. A coming-of-age story that’s both singular and universal-an outstanding debut.' - Kirkus Reviews “Jarrar is a funny, incisive writer, and she’s positively heroic in her refusal to employ easy sentimentality or cheap pathos. 'Randa Jarrar takes all the sappy, beloved clichTs about 'where you hang your hat' and blows them to smithereens in her energizing, caustically comic debut novel.' - The Christian Science Monitor ' A Map of Home will leave you laughing out loud.' - Entertainment Weekly

Jarrar's lack of sentimentality, and her wry sense of humor, make A Map of Home a treasure.' - People (four stars)

A map of home by randa jarrar