My response to this text has to be two-fold because, as a
work of fiction itself I found it dull and I found the ending decidedly
unbelievable and very rushed. However, my response to the subject matter and
the tension and concern that I feel the book would have elicited were it better
written are a different matter.
I think
if students are anything like myself they will find this book to be a very dry
read and will struggle to finish it, just as I struggled to finish it (the only
text this whole quarter that I had trouble finishing I might add). Now, I must
admit that it is possible that I found this text difficult because I simply
could not relate to Nadia because I found her character rather flat and
uninteresting, and this could show some kind of lack of understanding of her
perspective.
The
subject of the book, however, is one that I think most students would respond
well to. I think they would find it interesting to try to understand the
thought process of a potential religious radical and to see how they might be
lead, based on their beliefs, to seek violent and suicidal means of making
their opinions heard. I think this look into this kind of psyche would be very
chilling and would elicit discussion that would really delve into issues that
are facing our world today. With this in mind, I think we, as educators, would
need to be prepared for the kind of emotional response that this kind of
literature could engender in our students and help them control said feelings
and concerns.
All in
all, I think that had this book been written in a different way it could have
been effective in its efforts to help the reader understand the mindset of its
main character, but the way that it is written seems ineffective and
uninteresting to me.
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