Review: I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wowza, this is a hard one to review.

As far as an autobiography, this is not perfect. You can tell that there is a co-author to this book and not everything is Malala's own words. There's a lot of political and historical context that takes away from her own memoir, but that's the cost of writing to a Western audience. This book is very clearly targeted at someone like myself who knows nothing about Pakistan, not someone in Swat or anywhere in the Islamic world, for that matter.

What was beautiful about the text was seeing where Malala's love and passions lie. She often repeats a refrain along the lines of "my homeland is still the most beautiful place I've seen." This young girl loves nothing more than her family, her education, her religion, and her home, all of which have been threatened by Taliban rule in Pakistan.

Some beautiful quotes I don't want to forget:

“Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.”

"Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human."

"I don't want to be thought of as the 'girl who was shot by the Taliban' but the 'girl who fought for education.'"

And a last thought: there's something truly beautiful about this girl's spirit. She never wanted to be famous; she just wanted the right to a safe and thorough education and wished to create the same opportunities for others. She is not anti-muslim; in fact, she loves her religion and God with all her heart. And, even after winning the Nobel Prize, she does not think she is special to have done all this; she says herself that she knows many Pakistani girls who are smart and brave enough to be as iconic as her had they been in her circumstances.

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