Saints and Misfits

By: S. K. Ali

Narrated by: Ariana Delawari

Saints and Misfits is an unforgettable debut novel that feels like a modern day My So-Called Life…starring a Muslim teen.

There are three kinds of people in my world:

1. Saints, those special people moving the world forward. Sometimes you glaze over them. Or, at least, I do. They’re in your face so much, you can’t see them, like how you can’t see your nose.

2. Misfits, people who don’t belong. Like me—the way I don’t fit into Dad’s brand-new family or in the leftover one composed of Mom and my older brother, Mama’s-Boy-Muhammad.

Also, there’s Jeremy and me. Misfits. Because although, alliteratively speaking, Janna and Jeremy sound good together, we don’t go together. Same planet, different worlds.

But sometimes worlds collide and beautiful things happen, right?

3. Monsters. Well, monsters wearing saint masks, like in Flannery O’Connor’s stories.

Like the monster at my mosque.

People think he’s holy, untouchable, but nobody has seen under the mask.

Except me.

The worst narration

I honestly can’t say if I liked this book or not because the narration was so bizarrely cheerful - like listening to a bubbly teenager read to toddlers. It rarely matched the mood of the book, and never the most serious topics. I found myself trying to repeat many lines in my head in any other voice to try to separate the poor performance from the writing. It became impossible. I think this was probably a really good book that fell victim to a really poor narrator choice. Maybe I’ll go back and read it in print at some point.