She Wore Red Trainers: A Muslim Love Story

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With my young adult years not so far behind me, I can confidently and unashamedly recall the sheer number of young adult romance novels I devoured on a weekly basis. With my childhood surrounded by the Disney princesses of my time, I was no stranger to drifting off into a fantasy land with my prince on his noble steed sweeping me off my feet. Unfortunately, once I hit my teens, I believed this fantasy land to be just that - a fantasy. Like most of my peers, we saw the windswept romance of movies and novels to be an enjoyment for non-Muslims. With what we saw as suffocating and almost impractical rules and regulations surrounding any attempt at finding love, we didn’t believe a heart-fluttering romance to be achievable. Let me say, this book was NOT what I was expecting. It has done a really good job of potraying ISLAM as the peaceful religion it is. Without sounding preachy, it gives us a fairly good idea of the religion. The writing is simple enough to follow and easy to read which helped a lot with the pacing on the book, one thing that bugged me about it is how much the words “teeth kissing” (??) and “bro” were used, there was too much of them. She Wore Red Trainers is written in dual POV alternating between Ali and Amirah which was good, because even though the two of them don’t interact much, we still got to see what each of them thought of the other, of the few times they met, etc… This sounds absolutely awesome, but it seriously wasn't. For someone who swears not to marry, Amirah seriously couldn't stop thinking about Mr. Light Eyes (Ali) and Ali couldn't stop thinking about the girl in the red trainers. Their romance also had no development whatsoever. It was really rushed and the book felt too short. The characters also had no development. They were so plain and dull, like, God forbid these characters be a little more complex.

What IS an issue is that this is never called out by the narrative as cultural rather than religious. The Prophet (saws) encouraged young people to get to know their future spouses before marriage (in a controlled setting obviously). for example: amirah starts off the book being 110% against the idea of marriage bc she has seen her mother get involved with so many terrible dudes and then the second she sees ali her brain short circuits and she’s ready to RISK IT ALL

for a book that was fairly short, I feel we didn’t spend enough time with the characters to see them grow and mature in their rightful ways

It was a drawing of a hand, a strong, beautiful hand, the fingers tipped by perfect fingernails. A hand holding a basketball with a mole below the middle finger. And it was obvious who it belonged to. Mr. Light Eyes." Amirah. Amirah. How I wanted her to stand up and stop running away from her problems. It's an actual issue and theme raised inside the narrative and still, at the end, I can't help but see an element of running away as she chooses to join Ali in Mexico. Her life plan is in tatters. Her mother's marriage is ending (a good thing, no question) and her family is in the middle of yet another upheaval from this. And she runs off with Ali. You see, when we were little, Dad used to tell us that he was a superhero with secret super powers. Of course, we were always begging him to show us his powers, and he always said that he could never show them to us, but that we would know them when the time came. I’ll never forget the day I realised that the powers he had been talking about weren’t about being able to fly at warp speed or turn into a ball of fire; his powers were much more subtle than that. But the effect was the same: just like Superman, he made us feel safe, like there was nothing that could touch us, that he was always there to shield us from the baddies, from the harsher side of life. You know what would've been a bit more believable? Ali starts off isolated and grieving but over the course of the story starts meeting other converts and reverts like himself and slowly learns more about himself and his faith while healing from the trauma of his mother's death and trying to unite his dividing family. I sighed and shook my head. ‘You know you can’t, babe. Not until your skin gets better. And no more milk, OK? You have to drink the soya, you know that…’The only Halal Romance novel that I find to be all around perfect. I'm more particular when it comes to books like these because it revolves around the Deen, and that is something that we can't compromise. Nowadays, romance novels can be categorised under fantasy because of it's idealistic views. In this case, this book portrays marriage and love as incredibly realistic and relatable. The story was extremely heartwarming, it got me gushing and teary-eyed.

Through the open French doors, I could hear snatches of Dad’s conversation as he paced up and down the overgrown path through Mum’s herb garden.these kids have regular, normal lives and struggle with regular, normal things and just act like normal freaking human beings and IM SO HAPPY I FOUND SOME DAMN GOOD REPRESENTATION (even if it was cheesy and overdone at times, but we’ll get to that in a second) Some days, I thought I would literally go crazy, I was so tense and wound up. And all the girls in their summer dresses didn’t help things, trust me. Plus I was still thinking about my ex-girlfriend, Amy.

I was so excited when I heard that a Muslim YA romance was coming out and I looked forward to reading it once I got it. But having read it all I can come up with is, 'it was okay'. Which makes me sad. I raised an eyebrow and looked at him, warily. Whatever it was, it was making him extremely nervous. I love Ali and Ami together. They are so damn cute. The story isn't fluffy and cheesy. The characters are more mature considering their ages but I can understand they have become wo they were because of the situations both of them had to face from a young age.

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Even instances where there is resistance at first - Zayd's resistance to Ali as a prospect for Amirah for one - blow away without any seeming impetus for the characters to change their stances.