This was interesting, but hard for me. I think after the astonishingly good American Subversive, by David Goodwillie, it was maybe too soon to read a book that even came close to a similar topic. This book, as different in premise as it was, failed to convince me, like American Subversive did. I did actually cry at one point reading it, but it just wasn't that strong.
John Jude Parish, 19 year old surfer, breaks his leg skateboarding, and becomes involved in Sufi studies, and his indulgent parents agree to let him defer admission to Brown for a year while he studies Islam and Classical Arabic in Brooklyn. For reasons that are never really clear or believable of a character who initially comes across as as deep as a saucer, he falls deeper and deeper into his studies, eventually going to a language immersion school in Pakistan. There, he teaches local kids to skateboard (and annoyingly calls them groms- lots of bad stereotypical surfer/skater talk in this one, and while I might only know East Coast surfers or skaters, if anyone talked like as much of an ass as this guy, he'd probably get kicked for his efforts), has random and surprising sexual encounters with his fellow students, who assure him that Allah has no problem with homosexuality, and naturally joins the Taliban ahead of 9/11.
It was kind of a hot mess of a book actually.
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