Rebels by Accident by Patricia Dunn (review)

Things haven’t been easy for Mariam, an American-born Egyptian. All she wants is to be accepted as a normal American teen, but when she and her best friend, Deanna, wind up in jail after a party, her parents send them both to Egypt, thinking that a few days with Mariam’s strict sittu (grandmother) will set them straight. Mariam is surprised, then, to find that her grandmother is a strong-willed, feminist Muslim with a history of activism. They go to the pyramids like tourists, but things really start to get interesting when protests begin in Tahrir Square. In the space of five days, both girls fall in love with hot Egyptian guys who have the energy to return their affections while helping to organize the protests, Mariam’s grandmother reunites with an old flame, they participate in the protests, Mariam’s attitude toward being Egyptian completely changes, her grandmother suffers a heart attack, and Mariam learns to perform Muslim funeral rituals. This crammed agenda leads to some abruptness in the narration, with Mariam changing her mind from sentence to sentence while her grandmother dispenses some kernel of wisdom with every utterance. The readerly whiplash is forgivable given the timeliness of the subject matter, however; the fanciful travelogue/romance overlay humanizes the political substrate and draws attention to the connections between American teens and those involved in the protests by highlighting the commonality of their ages and concerns. Mariam’s reconciliation with her heritage via her feisty grandmother is clearly contrived to appeal to feminist sensibilities, but such education through an appealing character can’t help but have beneficial effects.