Before writing this blog I had to check the reviews to make sure I had picked up and read the right book. I mean the reviews verified that this book is for middle and high school, but after reading it, and even during, I could not decide who would be the best audience for this story. In most ways, everyone should read this book. It is unlike anything I think I have ever read, in good ways. But at the same time, it is written in such a unique style that I'm not sure who would stay with it long enough to find the story's rhythm, then ride that rhythm to the end of the book.
At the most basic level, this is the story of Daniel, an Iranian boy who flees Iran and ends up living in Edmond, Oklahoma with his mom and sister. He is telling the story of how he came to be in Oklahoma to his classmates in the form of a class show and tell. That is a very, very simplistic version. What fills all the rest of the pages is everything that happens to him and his extended family prior to that, and all the feelings of everything that has happened along the way. And since. It is so hard to describe, as Nayeri's storytelling is so unique that I don't know how to describe what happens in the book. The closest I can come to the narration is The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Except Everything Sad leaves out the intimate details.
Before I finished reading this book I knew I would immediately start it over again, so that the first 100 pages made more sense to me than they did the first time. Once I found the rhythm of the writing I was swallowed up by Daniel's story. It will change you, if you are willing to stay with it until you, too, find the cadence of the writing. 5 paws. This book will stay with me for a very long time, and perhaps with you, too!
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