She Wore Red Trainers: A Muslim Love Story

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The writing is simple enough to follow and easy to read which helped a lot with the pacing on the book, one thing that bugged me about it is how much the words “teeth kissing” (??) and “bro” were used, there was too much of them. She Wore Red Trainers is written in dual POV alternating between Ali and Amirah which was good, because even though the two of them don’t interact much, we still got to see what each of them thought of the other, of the few times they met, etc… I felt at some points that there were unnecessary details inserted into the story, probably to make the novel longer, or maybe seen by the writer as essential to the buildup of the plot. But I felt it could have been shorter, and the end could have been reached faster. So, that morning, it was up to me to get my little brothers and sister – Abdullah, Malik and Taymeeyah – ready for madrasah at the mosque. Yet, when my own journey towards a halal marriage began, it was filled with all the flutterings and excitement I wanted. The limitations we faced only sweetened the freedom found after the nikah was performed. Love flourished after the wedding, in the secure happiness of marriage. A feature of this book that makes it a beautifully engaging read is the fact that Ali’s and Amirah’s lives do not completely (and unrealistically) revolve around each other. They both have their own lives and their own personal battles facing them each day - Ali’s recent loss of his mother and Amirah’s heavy responsibilities at home by caring for her mother and siblings. In a way, this paints a wonderfully accurate picture of married life. Once married, it is not happily ever after. There will be obstacles, there will be battles, there will be difficult situations that make life that much more challenging. The solace is in your spouse. The beauty is finding your way towards your companion amongst the trials and disappointments of life. Life is not a fairytale, but happiness, love and contentment do exist in reality.

I kissed my teeth and walked out of the door, disgusted. ‘Men,’ I thought to myself as I banged Mum’s favourite teacup on the chipped enamel counter. ‘They’re all the same.’ Not to be cynical or anything, but it feels to me like this is story about teenagers rather than for them. Like a guide for what Muslim teenagers should do when faced with Issues(tm). Except it falls short, because Ali and Amirah never do anything haram in this entire book. Their “bad” phases are mentioned offscreen, in the past. They're Good Muslims now. Their friends are good Muslims. Moral dilemmas? Ambiguity? Nope. Ali shuts down his ex-girlfriend, Amy, right away, and there's no tension here because we know he's not going to go for anything haram. There's no way for character to develop if they don't, y'know, have flaws in the first place... Some days, I thought I would literally go crazy, I was so tense and wound up. And all the girls in their summer dresses didn’t help things, trust me. Plus I was still thinking about my ex-girlfriend, Amy.The dialogue in this story didn't feel realistic at all. The words "bro," "akh" (brother), and "man" were used way too often and it bugged me so much.

Ali is a teen who is exploring his identity as a Muslim and is striving to become a better one. His mother died, his little brother is always angry and now they have to move to a new place and grow used to it. Life is hard for Ali and his family and he doesn't want to admit it, but they are growing apart from each other, well his little brother anyways. She Wore Red Trainers by Na'ima B. Robert is not like any other book I've read before and I really like it for that very reason. It's always a good thing, I think, reading books very different to our own personal beliefs. It's good to read a story with a very different perspective and to see things differently. And that's what my enjoyment of She Wore Red Trainers was about for the most part.And then there is Amirah, who is pretty resistant to the idea of boys and marriage especially in light of her mother's disastrous love life as her mother is, at the beginning of the novel, grappling with her fourth divorce. And at the same time Amirah is also questioning what she wants to do with her life and what she sees for her future. She loves art but other more practical subjects are more encouraged and pushed. Literally the moment he arrives in London (East? South? I can't remember) from the countryside - a mixed race boy with a posh country accent, he gets swept up by a bike gang - a GOOD gang of nice Muslim boys who gave up motorbiking for fun to serve the community with them instead. They're basically Top-Gear angelic saviours, a wish come true. Too many young girls in this community are dying to get married to get away from their problems at home, or to get a bit of freedom. But let me tell you something: if you rush into marriage to escape your problems, you may find that they follow you anyway.” –She Wore Red Trainers, Na’ima B Robert What with work during the week, it’s the only chance I get to sleep in, Ams,’ was his reasoning. ‘Now that you’ve finished school, you’ll get to join all the other sisters, living the easy life at home, while we brothers sweat it out at work every day. Subhanallah, you sisters have got it easy, man!’ Amira is a total pushover. Her brother is horrible and manipulative, but she always defends him and makes him seem like the most amazing person in the world.

We have Ali, who has moved to London with his dad and two brothers after the death of Ali's mother and the decline in his father's business. Everyone is handling their grief in different ways and I really liked seeing Ali's brother, Umar, struggle with Ali and their dad's return to Islam and we can see that, for Umar at least, it isn't quite that easy and that there's still plenty of anger and helplessness in the face of loss.Umar kissed his teeth and scrunched down further in his seat, his eyes fixed on the phone he held in front of him. Also, Ali communicating with Abdullah through sign language and the whole interaction between Ali and Abdullah, my ghawsh. Why so cute Ali?!🤲🏼 Both of them had their struggles with Islam, and this book really saw that through to the end, which I was really pleased about. Zayd groaned. ‘What’s with all this women’s lib stuff? Is that what they taught you in that school of yours? A woman’s place…’ This definitely happens unfortunately in many countries, so it being part of the story isn't a problem.

Fast, son,’ was Dad’s advice. ‘Work out, play basketball or something. It will give you an outlet.’ Why did I read it? I was curious. I wanted to see how Na’ima B. Robert was going to portray this. I had read her biography, “From Her Sisters’ Lips” the previous summer and had actually just finished reading “From Somalia with Love“, her first book, which I hated (let me know if you want a review on that book, as I may do one), so I already had pretty mixed feelings about her books. Now that I really think about it, the romance does seem a bit clichéd. The ending was also dramatic. Some people might find the dialect problematic, but to me it was just... cute. And the characters. They felt so real, it was almost scary. It felt as if they were actually speaking to us. This isn't your usual romance, it has a life of it's own. The way Na'ima Roberts has written this wonderful book with real-as-hell characters is just WOW. I'm not kidding. Read it for yourself.

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You see, when we were little, Dad used to tell us that he was a superhero with secret super powers. Of course, we were always begging him to show us his powers, and he always said that he could never show them to us, but that we would know them when the time came. I’ll never forget the day I realised that the powers he had been talking about weren’t about being able to fly at warp speed or turn into a ball of fire; his powers were much more subtle than that. But the effect was the same: just like Superman, he made us feel safe, like there was nothing that could touch us, that he was always there to shield us from the baddies, from the harsher side of life. There is token mention of Ali admiring Amirah's artistic skill, and of him choosing her for her deen, but his reasoning of, 'she comes from a practising family' is weak. One cannot judge the depth of a persons faith entirely off of the way their sibling (Zayd) seems to practice. Understanding that this is a Muslim (halal) romance, I didn't expect the usual romance novel beats of sleeping around and misunderstandings with regard to sexual tension. There is still plenty of room for the real life drama to be heightened until you actually feel concerned for the characters without violating the desired purity of the romance being played out. OK, so now of course the question was, where was the human hot dog in all of this? Well, Zayd, my older brother, and I had a strict division of labour in the house: he did the weekday school run and I took the weekend mornings.