Malaka Gharib

Malaka Gharib is the American child of two immigrants, her father from Egypt and her mother from the Philippines. In her graphic novel memoir, she relates her experiences growing up in two sometimes similar and sometimes very different cultural backgrounds, in addition to the influence of American pop culture. From early childhood to adulthood, she explores her growing understanding of who she is.

This was a really eye-opening story for me to read about this young woman, who's close to my show more age, navigating a complicated family history and cultural background. As a white woman who grew up in very white small towns, I appreciate stories like these that open my eyes to a wide variety of experiences. Malaka Gharib does so with a lot of self-awareness and openness about feeling different. She also tackles some tough topics such as why "What are you?" is a sensitive question and examples of microaggressions. And she does so with both frankness and humor. This is her story, and it's truly enjoyable. show less

It Won’t Always Be Like This is a graphic novel about an Egyptian-Filipino-American girl who writes about her summers with her father and his new family in Egypt. This graphic novel explores the complicated dynamic that is family and cultural difference during Malaka Gharib’s preteens through early adulthood.

I enjoyed that Gharib didn’t shy away from how she was as a teenager (mood, bratty, and selfish). She was quite honest looking back as to both how she felt and her reasoning behind show more it at that time. I also like how the ending wasn’t necessarily a happy one - things weren’t resolved and everything was okay, but Gharib wished everyone, especially Hala, the best.

Overall, a great and beautiful graphic novel memoir that dives into being a kid with not only divorced parents, but divorced parents who live on opposite sides of the world from each other and what it’s like living between them. show less

Gharib creates a cute and amusing graphic memoir about being the child of immigrants, a Catholic Filipino mother and a Muslim Egyptian father, as she tracks her transition from desiring assimilation into white American culture, to feelings of rejection, to finding her own identity by acknowledging, integrating and melding all the diverse cultures that went into the creation of the woman she is today. Fun with a side of inspiring.

I picked up this graphic novel after reading Malaka Gharib's newer memoir, It Won't Always Be Like This, which focused more on her summers in Egypt with the Egyptian side of her family.

I enjoyed this earlier graphic novel as well, as it gave more of the author's background, starting with the lives of both her immigrant parents, from their immigration to the US, their marriage, her birth, her life in California after their divorce, college in NY, first job and marriage. We get to see her show more growing up mainly surrounded by her big Filipino family, her summers in Egypt with her father's side and as a Filipino-Egyptian American and the comparing/contrasting her various cultures. Her marriage to a Caucasian man from the South, and how that new culture contrast is brought into the mix is also depicted.

I especially had a good laugh as how Caucasian people are drawn not with "pink" toned skin, but with a complete absence of color, truly "white". show less