Things I liked:
-The story is compelling. Without going over the top the reader understands the horrors of Laila's distant home and how unaffected most Americans are.
-This story provides an interesting other side to the news and images we are shown on the news.
-Laila's is accessible, she is a character you almost instantly connect with, despite how different her background is from most everyone.
-There's not an abundance of blame placing. I didn't feel guilty about being an American but I did think about issues in America and Western culture. The book encouraged me to examine and question. This is important because it could easily sling blame, on both sides, but it doesn't and I think that is the great power of this book. I could easily see myself teaching this book to kids, kids who come from a variety of backgrounds, and all of them taking important questions away from the reading. PLUS, I think they would enjoy the reading.

Things I didn't like:
-She's pretty much white on the cover. That is absurd.
-I wonder how realistic some of Laila's responses to American culture really are. Her actions at the dance and with boys in general seem a bit off from what I've read and seen about women from her part of the world and background.
-The ending was a bit...soft. I like happy endings but that wasn't going to happen in this book. I don't know how the ending of this could have been happy or easy or not leave sadness, but there must have been a way. The ending is not bad, it's just not real. With so many real elements of the story the ending feels false, like it's given to the reader as a consolation prize at a fair, a cheap trinket that you know will break, you know is an illusion but you take it anyway. It doesn't do justice to the story or the characters.