Does My Head Look Big in This? (review)

Australian-born Amal, a Muslim of Palestinian descent, has decided to take the plunge and become a full-timer, which is what she and her Muslim friends call girls who wear the hijab, or head scarf, whenever they will be in the presence of males outside their immediate family. She makes a good case for her decision: not only does it make more sense to her to base your fashion sense on Allah's injunction to dress modestly than on what some "ugly fake-tanned old fart in Milan" says is in this year, but it also draws attention away from teen obsessions like cleavage and shoulder-to-hip ratios. The downside, as she quickly discovers, is that she has to become a spokesperson for her faith in an age (2002) when "Muslim" has become shorthand for "terrorist." With her fiery temper and quick wit, Amal razors through illegitimate conflations of religion, culture, and pathology, but she is still resolutely a teenaged girl—that is, while she understands her religious motivations for adopting the hijab, she is not yet ready to completely divorce herself from its cultural aspects. She recoils from the prejudices it engenders, but she enjoys feeling part of an elite club. Nor is she ready for the change of heart her decision portends: she flirts from beneath her veil and treats it as much as a fashion accessory as a religious symbol, spending hours putting together color-coordinated outfits and adjusting the curve of the scarf just so. But as bad hair days get replaced by bad hijab days, she steadily grows into an increasingly mature and nuanced understanding of what it means to be a Muslim woman, helped by the positive example of her stylish, professional, devout mother and the negative examples of her assimilation-obsessed aunt and her best friend's tradition-strictured mother. Self-conscious and self-aware, funny and feisty, Amal turns into a pretty good spokesperson for her faith after all.