It was very interesting but I wasn't that enthused about the writing. It jumped around a lot which made it a bit confusing but the story was definitely worth reading.

I appreciate Awista's telling of this story that not many people have heard of, and I enjoyed some of the ideas (which were scattered) and some of the main points I thought the book was trying to get across. This book does speak to the bravery of these girls, but the author's attempts at showing how difficult it must have been for these girls to persevere is overshadowed by the sloppy timeline. Readers are jerked from America in July 2004 to Kabul in September 2005 to Kabul in some unidentified time to America in August 2004 to Kabul in April 2006, etc. In addition, the chapters go from one girl's story to another's to the narrator's - messy. Also, at one point the girls have played a game and then a second game, then the timeline switches to before the second game, and then goes to some other tangent, and then returns to say the girls will be playing a second game (when the second game was already described in relative detail pages before). Also, the girls' lives are not fully developed enough to really grab the reader. Readers are told of opposition from family and friends, but the story is just dropped after a few pages, leaving the reader to wonder what happened to the girls, and unconvinced of the struggles these girls had to go through to do something as simple as playing soccer. A third issue I had with this book was I became confused: was this book Awista's attempt to struggle through/discover/define her identity as Afghan, American, or Afghan-American (or some other combination), or was it about these girls? Is this a story about self-discovery (and if so, whose? Awista's or the girls'?), or is a story of how women can and should be empowered and why, or is it a story of how sports can transform a country (and especially its women)?

Either way, the thesis was very weak, not fully developed, and there was no firm resolution. The book had a very weak ending. Awista decided she had strong American traits having been brought to America at such a young age, losing a good amount of her native language (Pashto - which, in terms of language development, having come to the US at age 2, would not have been very well established as a first language before introducing English), wearing the hijab differently than women in Kabul, etc., but she also discovers she can feel at home in Kabul. The girls have some success as soccer players, but their whole journey was not developed enough to make a story about what soccer is doing for girls in Afghanistan, or what happens to girls who are allowed to play for a while but are then forced to quit, etc. The epilogue relates some of the difficulties being faced in terms of firmly establishing a women's soccer program in Afghanistan, but I wish the book overall had provided a more organized timeline, well-defined thesis, developed characters, background on Afghanistan, Kabul culture vs. that of the rural areas (especially in terms of how religious people are and how religion influences attitudes and behaviors towards women), and a stronger ending/some sort of outlook for the future. With all the author's connections,more detailed and developed perspectives of the coaches and political officials she mentions encountering would have been helpful, also.

I learned so much about Afghanistan through the eyes of these girls & their desire to play soccer.

I loved the concept of this true story of training girls in Afghanistan how to play soccer. Great girl power, teaching leadership collaboration and strength to girls in a war torn sexist society. I think what the author did as a response to 9-11 is amazing and wonderful. I wish the book, lived up to the true story. The style of writing was jerky and the construct of flipping thru time from before their travels to US to being in the US to post trip, was confusing and distracting. The book had all the potential of those young women and yet it never went anywhere. I hope that isn't true for the real girls!

I'm actually reading/read "However Tall the Mountain" which is the hardback version of this.



Before reading, but after I put it on my "to-read" list, I saw some mixed reviews on this. I can understand where the reviewers comment on the "poor grammar" but I think what they see as "poor grammar" is actually the way that the people in the book actually talk. It's a very interesting book that I think gives a different perspective about the Afghan culture than I am used to hearing. It also hits home with me because a majority of the girls are from Kabul and if I am/were to deploy with the Corps of Engineers, that is where I would be going and several of my friends are there right now. I've seen pictures of some of the places that are mentioned in the book, so the story comes through even clearer for me than I think it would for some.

There's such an interesting story here, but I think it's undermined by the way the book is structured. By alternating between talking about the girls' trip to the States and giving more in-depth pictures of each girl's home life, the book loses some of its narrative strand. By the time we learn enough about the girls to be invested, the book is nearly over.

Moreover, there's no tension. I get that it was a challenge of epic proportions to start a soccer team, to get the team to the States, etc., but there's no real sense of what is at stake for these girls or for the author.

All told: good book, interesting story, but not terribly engaging.

I loved the concept of this true story of training girls in Afghanistan how to play soccer. Great girl power, teaching leadership collaboration and strength to girls in a war torn sexist society. I think what the author did as a response to 9-11 is amazing and wonderful. I wish the book, lived up to the true story. The style of writing was jerky and the construct of flipping thru time from before their travels to US to being in the US to post trip, was confusing and distracting. The book had all the potential of those young women and yet it never went anywhere. I hope that isn't true for the real girls!