Review of "I am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb

I just finished this book and I wanted to write the review while still under the influence of emotion from the moment of closing the back cover. The first thing I did was log into Goodreads, mark it as "finished" and give it a rating. Something pretty strange happened. I gave it five out of five stars. If you looked at my ratings, you would find that most of the books I liked have four, and five star ratings are reserved for Borges, Fitzgerald and Huxley. So even on my virtual bookshelf, Malala seems to have a knack for finding herself in good company.

This autobiography, however, shares the high place for different reasons. My rating does not reflect the quality of writing or my enjoyment while reading it, but the importance that I feel it deserves. In addition to Malala's extraordinary story, the book contains a lot of background information about history, politics and culture of the Swat Valley, the Pashtun and Pakistan. There is also a lot of detail about her family, her every day life and how it changed with the events in her country. This causes the story to read slowly at times, especially throughout the middle third of the book. On the other hand, as much as perhaps all of it was not necessary to include, it was ultimately valuable information. The historical and political background really puts the story in context. The details of her life make Malala more real and relatable. So if you are reading this book and become annoyed with me because of descriptions of a sixth grade field trip or wondering why you need to know how Pakistan came to be as a country, be patient and keep reading, they are all important details of the big picture.

In the end, every aspect that I doubted while reading became understandable. It reads like amateur writing in much of the text, but this is also necessary in my opinion. This is a teenage girl telling her remarkable life story with the help of an author who is (as I imagine) trying to help her in writing as much as possible while still preserving the girl's young voice. Describing her homeland and its culture, Malala comes of as what I would call a realistic patriot. She is very cognizant of the things about her country that are unfair and self-destructive, as she shows unconditional love and devotion.

The aspect of this work that really takes its value to the next level is the knowledge it gives the reader about the history of Pakistan, the Swat Valley, Islam, the Pashtun culture. Perhaps most informatively, it offers insight about the Taliban and the methods they used to take and maintain control of their target areas as well as a local family's point of view of the events in the last several years, including the US military involvement.

I believe I have so far provided my opinion and information on this book without spoiling it for future readers, but it would be hard to keep writing about it without revealing too much. The bottom line is that I recommend this book (I know, shockingly unexpected!), and would love to hear other opinions and reviews from those who have read it.