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  • An Infidel in Paradise by S. J. Laidlaw
  • Karen Coats
Laidlaw, S. J. . An Infidel in Paradise. Tundra, 2013. 308p Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-77049-304-9 $19.95 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-77049-305-6 $10.99 R Gr. 7-10.

Emma is used to moving, since her family has lived in many countries during her sixteen years as her ambitious, hard-working mother took jobs at various Canadian embassies. Now, though, her dad has left the family for the nanny, and her mother has moved the rest of them to Islamabad, Pakistan; Emma, who loves her dad and had lots of good friends, and malls, and freedom in her mother's previous posting in the Philippines, is not pleased. Now she is living in a hot, dusty city, and she can't leave the compound without covering every part of her body. The chip on her shoulder shows a little too clearly when she meets the locals at her new school, and she runs afoul of school royalty by insulting the country and attracting the amorous eye of the wealthy, beautiful Mustapha who is betrothed to the queen bee. A bubbly American does befriend her, but just when Emma lets her guard down to warm to the friendship, embassy bombings around the world whisk her friend away. Though Emma is involved in typical teenage problems—parental divorce, a difficult relationship with her workaholic mother, finding herself on the wrong side of high school politics, and a confusing romantic situation—they play out in a most atypical setting, one that both exacerbates her difficulties and impels her to grow in unexpected ways. Readers who are at all interested in world affairs and what it would be like to try to live a normal teenage life in a political hot spot and/ or as a cultural minority will find this utterly engrossing.

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