I really had some hopes for this book once I read the blurb on the jacket, but it didn't live up to them. The author tells the story instead of allowing the characters to do it, which makes it dreadfully boring to read. The plot is also as two-dimensional as can be: every man who comes into the proximity of this 13-year-old girl wants to have sex with her or rape her. Blah. The story could have been so much more than it is. ( )

I inhaled it yesterday; could NOT put it down. Hilarious and horrible and wonderful. I rec with caution, however: sexual assault of a young teen by a man three times her age, plus other disturbing things. (Yet one of the things I valued it for was the portrayal of the girl's agency, which I thought had all sorts of toothy complexity to it. So.)

Creepy, compelling and unbearably sad .Towelhead kinda weirded me out. I bought it for my wife after she saw an actor from the film version talking about it on The View a month or so ago. She started reading it to me aloud while we were driving across Ohio and Pennsylvania. We were both weirded out. I mean we grew up in the 50s and 60s, a time when kids simply did not engage in the kind of sexual experimentation so graphically portrayed in this book. Granted there is a kind of innocence and a kind of unquestioning amorality in the way they do it, but still ... I know there's been a lot of stuff in the news and media in the past few years about the prevalence of sex play, particularly oral sex, that junior high schoolers now supposedly regularly indulge in, just to "be popular." But to read about it here, from inside the mind of a 13-14 yr-old girl, is just shocking, frightening, and, finally, just incredibly sad. And the home-life of protagonist, Jasira - if you can even call it that - is simply nonexistent and tragic. The adult neighbor who molests her, the father who hits her, the mother who sent her away because mom's boyfriend was too "interested" in Jasira. The inter-racial and inter-ethnic relationships set against the backdrop of the first Gulf War are all very skillfully interwoven into the story, making poor Jasira even more of a victim. I'm nearly sixty-five years old and I shudder to think of all that my grandchildren will have to cope with - all the wrong expectations and peer pressure of a society gone dreadfully astray from the values my wife and I knew as children and teenagers. I'm not saying this is a bad book. Quite the contrary. It's an excellent depiction of the way things probably are, unfortunately. I winced my way through 300-plus pages, but in the end, there is an epiphany-like scene (for Jasira) that brought tears to my eyes, and also gave me hope that maybe somehow things would be okay for her after all. I'm not sure if this book is meant for teenagers to read. Probably not, but their parents definitely should. Alicia Erian has written a very important document of our times. ( )

The story of a girl, daughter of a strict Lebanese immigrant father, who is sent to live with him. His authoritarian ideas leave her lonely and ignorant, and at the mercy of a predatory neighbor. ( )

Towelhead is one of the best books I have read this year. It's powerful and raw, telling the story of thirteen year-old Jasira, a girl who is abused sexually, emotionally, and physically by nearly everyone in her life. While it could have easily strayed into a dark and hopeless place, the author manages to keep it hopeful and even retain a modicum of Jasira's innocence.

The book is written from Jasira's perspective and the narrative feels authentically thirteen without being irritatingly thirteen. As the reader, one often cringes at the bad choices Jasira makes but still always roots for her. This novel is stunning, moving, and I found myself unable to put it down. ( )