The Beauty of Your Face is beautifully written and engaging.

"Be merciful to others and you will receive mercy"

The Beauty of Your Face is about Afaf, who is a daughter of Palestinian immigrant and the principal of a Muslim girls school in the Chicago Suburbs. We follow Afaf and her family from 1976 up until present day, dipping in and out of time periods (1976,1985, 1993 and 2002) to current day during
a radical alt right school shooting.

As we walk through the life of Afaf we get to know her family and follow her journey to finding solace within the Islamic community. This novel was extremely powerful and covered a huge range of topics and themes, the most interesting themes in my opinion being mental illness, community and family. Mustafah illustrated the struggle of being a Muslim woman in America eloquently and explored the expectations that come both from within your community and outside. This novel addressed racism and religious discrimination in all its forms, especially some of the more covert discrimination. I truly felt invested in each character in this novel and I loved Baba's insightful wisdom.

I highly recommend! I also I cannot believe this is Mustafah's first novel. WOW!

Thank you to Legend Press, Sahar Mustafah and NetGalley for an early copy of The Beauty of Your Face.

The Beauty of Your Face is a wonderfully written novel about the life of Afaf Rahman. Afaf is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants and is also the head teacher of a Muslim all girls in Chicago. The story is told through two main timeslines, Afaf's childhood and her present where she finds herself in a cupboard when a shooter is in her school. The dual timeline provides insight in to Afaf's difficult upbringing and her relationship with religion from an early age through to adulthood.

Mustafah has very beautifully crafted a story that details the day to day lives of first generation Americans as well as the exploration of ever growing and shifting racism and how that impacts individuals, families and communities. I did not want this book to end and I will definitely be looking out for more of Mustafah's work.

4/5 - would highly recommend.

The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah is about a Palestinian American family. I found the parts about Afaf’s difficult childhood drew me in much more than the parts that focus on a shooting at the school where the adult Afaf now works.