Moving, thought-provoking, quiet, kind. A real balm for a lesbian dealing with some religious trauma. More books like this about the butch experience please.

Alienated from country and kin, Lamya turns to her faith for guidance in Hijab Butch Blues. Searching for her identity, she knows she is attracted to women, wonders if God is they, has a crush on her school teacher, and finds inspiration from the Koran stories of Mary, Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

In Mary, she wonders if she were not touched by a man would that indicate she is a lesbian? In Noah, she must find faith in herself when no one else believes. In Abraham, confusion as to her purpose. In Moses, a miracle for herself. 

A beautiful memoir that weaves faith into her journey to found family and her true self.

A compelling memoir with stories from the Quran woven beautifully in. Sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, I loved getting to experience Lamya’s coming of age, growing into herself, and forming communities.

This book portrays someone who struggles to make sense of their queer identity in the face of religion. The character reevaluates what religion means to them by reexamining religious text from their unique point of view. While I am not Muslim, I have seen some people critiquing the character equating Allah to nonbinary. I think that it is important to read this book not as a guide to this religion, but as someone's interpretation of religion and how they can connect religion to their queer identity. 

I would recommend this book because it is not only unique but fascinating to read.

This is an absolutely stunning memoir, and one that I kind of want everyone to read. The writing is absolutely fantastic, my eyes were glued to my Kindle the whole way through. It was so interesting, thought-provoking, and insightful the way the author discussed the relation between her queerness and her religion, connecting her own experiences to stories from the Quran.

Hijab Butch Blues is an incredibly moving, beautifully written memoir and coming of age story. Each chapter of the book weaves stories from the Quran with the story of Lamya's life, drawing connections between the messages of the Quran and her lived experience as a queer, brown, Muslim, immigrant. I found the chapter with the story of Muhammed, which is told in second person, particularly moving. She is talking to Muhammed - telling him his story and asking him questions about his thoughts and feelings - and interweaving it with the the story of her finally, finally, finally finding her people, her queer Muslim community.

The memoir is very introspective and raw. She really lays herself bare, something her anonymity gives her the safety to do. She takes her life story and presents it in a way that really highlights the uniqueness of her life experiences while also distilling them down to thoughts and feelings that are extremely relatable and common.

What a thoughtful, reflective memoir. I loved reading about Lamya's life and coming of age. I learned a lot about her faith and the Quran, which I honestly knew very little about going in to this book. Beautifully written and full of heart!

WOW!!! I have no words for how incredible Hijab Butch Blues is. The parallels between Lamya's life and stories in the Quran were stunning and informative. Reading about an often overlooked queer experience is something we all should be doing! 5/5 book

This book… is maybe the most seen I’ve felt in literature in a long time. Which feels odd since I am a queer white woman in a high demand Christian religion and this book is about a queer hijabi Muslim woman. but this book feels so relatable. 

The description of depression in this book is maybe the first time I have seen how I feel written down so concisely on a page. It took so long for me to identify that what I was feeling was depression because I wasn’t experiencing it how others were. This book really nails exactly how I have felt when my depression gets bad.

The struggle to take a fairly conservative religious and familial culture and to learn and to make your religion your own feels very relatable too. Taking all those things you took as truth and reevaluating them, reading between the lines of scriptural stories. It is such a hard process and yet it opens up a world of difference, love, and progress. This book made me want to reread the Quran and the Bible to find radical love and queer acceptance there. 

This book deals with really hard topics, and does so in such a beautiful way. The way it weaves in scriptural narratives and how they relate to her life makes this book read sometimes like a scripture study with the author, and what a great study partner to have.

I enjoyed this book. Lamya is a good writer, and the book flows very well. Lamya is a lesbian who discovers her sexuality in school and struggles with her identity as a Muslim and lesbian. Her country of origin is never mentioned, and neither is the country she moved to as a young child, which informs much about how she sees the world. There is a lot to unpack in this book- race, sexuality, colorism, xenophobia but Lamya is such an engaging writer you want to read more.

This book was a healing experience for me.  After coming out as queer several years ago and separating from conservative Christianity I am just now getting back to exploring new avenues for exploring Christianity in a way that makes sense for me so I loved seeing the authors takes on stories from the Quran and how she understands them in a way that fits with her identity.

This was very eye-opening and I learned so much. I truly hope this gets a lot of attention. It is a story that deserves to be shared and heard.

"This is the world fourteen-year-old me couldn’t even begin to imagine. I’m already here."

I've chosen the very last words of this fascinating memoir because they aren't the ending I thought I'd be reading but a realization that what she hoped for as a child could really happen.

As a retiree from ordained ministry I am fascinated by interpretation of the stories of *my* Bible interpreted by other faith traditions. And Islam is not the first religion to do this. However, as a queer feminist I applaud the author's guts for not accepting it part and parcel. This is what we need: new and different lived experiences that allow the stories to become part of us TODAY.

This memoir is as brave as Leslie Fienburg's "Stone Butch Blues" and could be as life changing as that was for my generation. I will be on the lookout for more of this author's work and thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read It. Highly Recommended 5/5

What a great read! A queer coming-of-age story. Beautiful and sad story about reconciling one's religion and culture with identity. 4/5 stars only because some of the bits from the Quran were a bit dry for me but I appreciate the ways in which Lamya translates them to their life.

Hijab Butch Blues
By Lamya H

A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.

I enjoyed reading this memoir formatted as essays that connected inner struggles of queerness to the sacred scripture of the Quran, to find understanding of self in this coming of age story. I thought that the writing was engrossingly captivating that tackled important themes of race, religion, immigration, islamophobia and homophobia that is enlightening and one that brings understanding on many levels. I thought that the writing was sophisticated and insightful.

HIJAB BUTCH BLUES is a phenomenal book. It's a voice and story we need in LGBTQIAP+ storytelling today. It's a perfect addition to the conversation started in Leslie Feinberg's STONE BUTCH BLUES. I'll be using HIJAB BUTCH BLUES in several of my upcoming classes this summer and fall. I can't wait to dig into it with my creative writing students.

This is a queer Muslim immigrant's memoir in essays that pairs stories from the Quran with stories of their own life. I didn't know what to expect when I picked this up, but I enjoyed it immensely, particularly the perspective Lamya has on religion and God as it relates to queerness. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this. I loved the parallels between the pieces of Lamya's memoir and the stories of the qu'ran. Very excited to see what this author puts out next and this is a very important story to be told.

Hijab Butch Blues is a poignant intersectional piece that is both deeply personal and highly relatable for Muslims and non-Muslims, queer people and non-queer people alike.

I finished reading this book a week ago but I wanted to get my thoughts together before writing down a review. Hijab butch blues is a queer Muslim memoir and I’m glad it exists in the world. However, it felt incomplete and don’t know if that was due to this being a debut or the anonymity surrounding the author for their safety. I appreciated how Lamya walked us along her life, her faith, the discovery of her queerness and how they have had to hide it all from their family that still lives in a different country and have different expectations of them. The reason why I am not giving this book 5stars was because at times the transitions between her life and her stories and the religious text felt at times incongruent or too abrupt. The author uses their faith to have meaning out of things and explain why it’s ok to be queer and loved (and I 100% agree with  this, but as someone agnostic I couldn’t relate to the parallels drawn by the author between religious texts and their life). I would have appreciated a little more introduction or explanation on this. 
The memoir is also a little slow, and I ended up listening to this book and would recommend that format for this memoir.