I find it hard to write a review of this book. It's not fiction. I can't talk about character motives or literary devices. I can't rank the author's originality or creativity. It's not fiction. Malala Yousafzai, the world's youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner, is a real girl, the same age as me, and has experienced everything that she speaks of in her auto-biography. She has shared her entire life for the readers and doesn't hold back in revealing the horrifying conditions she experienced under Taliban rule or the beauty in her homeland that she is able to find regardless.

I have always been a little wary of biographies. For one, I prefer to read fiction. I love to see worlds of fantasy and science-fiction over hearing about events that happened in the real time and place I live in. Secondly, I find writing about one's self to be a challenge. I dislike writing about myself because no matter what I say about myself, I feel like I'm either singing praises of my strengths or reprimanding myself for my faults. Whenever I read about someone else, I look at what they write with the same critical and unhappy eye I use with my own work. Malala's story was different for me. I feel like there is such honesty within her and her writing. There was never a moment when I thought she was being phony (and I must use that word having just read Catcher in the Rye). Even when she claims to have asked for her family to bring her textbooks when she was recovering in a hospital I did not question whether or not she was being genuine. Unlike me, who would never do that in my wildest dreams, Malala Yousafzai did not grow up with the guarantee of an education. She was constantly fighting for hers.

I have known about Malala Yousafzai for some time and have been a long time follower of her campaign. Despite the global uproar that followed the incidents in October of 2012, I am surprised by the many people I know who have never heard of her or her story. As I read, I learned that I didn't truly know as much about her plight as I had thought.

Malala Yousafzai lived in the Swat Valley, Pakistan, with her two younger brothers, mother, and father, who also owned the school that she attended. Growing up, she was a normal girl who loved to learn. She excelled at public speaking and struggled with physics. As she became older, the Taliban began to encroach on her country and the valley she grew up in. They began to take away the rights of women; forcing them to stay indoors, go to the market accompanied by male relatives, forcing them to wear long, black burqa, and forbidding them from attending school. For both Malala and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, the last was of the utmost importance to them. Together they began to openly speak out against the Taliban and their restrictions. This book recalls Malala and her father's lives throughout their campaign for equality and women's rights, leading up to what has brought Malala's story to the attention of the entire world: the day she was shot in the head on her way home from school.

I think the greatest part about this novel is that it brings the Middle East and the events that have taken place there in recent years to light. Coming from an American high school education, I never learned much about the history of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East. Do we spend months on the American Civil War every other year? Yes. Have I learned about every battle to ever happen in World War II? You bet. But the Middle East seems to be taboo when it comes to our typical historical education. The most I have learned about that region is Mesopotamia and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the fact that the US fought in the Gulf War, and that Osama bin Laden, the infamous terrorist, came from the region. That's as far as it goes.

Reading this novel was a shock. I knew things weren't good over there and that people were being persecuted and killed. There's something different about learning the reasons behind it. How the Pakistani people began to view their government and why the Taliban and other terrorists got so much support. The novel lays out who was being persecuted for what reasons and how they were treated for what they believed or how they dressed. I can never relate or understand what it would be like to live under such conditions, but I believe this book did a great job of connecting what many people of the Western civilization didn't understand with something we learn about over and over again. This book did an amazing job of relating the events in Pakistan with those in Nazi Germany. When Malala was younger, she anonymously wrote a blog about life as a female student in a land where people threatened her for learning and where she had to hide her face and sometimes pretend to be younger so she could continue to study. The connection between her and Anne Frank is quite apparent and the many who have read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank can see the relations between the two time periods and situations. My personal favorite connection, and probably one of my favorite parts of the entire book, was when Yousafzai explained her father's and her own motives for speaking out for what they believe in. Her father carried this poem around with him in his pocket, written by Martin Niemoller, who lived in Nazi Germany:

"First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unions,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I was not a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me."

It is inspiring to know that although Ziauddin Yousafzai is both Muslim and male (two of the most prized traits of the Taliban), he openly speaks out against the persecution of women and the terrors the Taliban enacts on his beloved country He and Malala are not waiting for someone else to defend them when it's clear no one will. They took a stand and continue to do so..The fact that this comparison to the horrors of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s can be made is devastating in my eyes, but the fact that there are people who are fighting against it gives me hope.

In fact, despite the message that Malala brought to light in her work and novel, I fully believe that Ziauddin is one of the most influential members of this story and this movement. He is a well-respected man who willingly puts his views out into the world, no matter what others may think. We are all, in some way, influenced by our parents, and his effect on Malala is no different. I applaud the fact that this novel contained not only the author's own personal experiences, but the history of her family and the thoughts and emotions of her father throughout the entire chain of events as well. Malala would not be the same woman she is now if her father had not believed that a daughter should be given the same love and opportunities as a son. He was the first to look at the world and see the flaws and then change the way he acted to correct them. Because he was willing to speak out against the social norms in his society, he was able to raise Malala to think different and eventually fight for what she believed in. Fathers are role models for their children and Malala clearly gains her forward thinking and skill at public speaking from her father.

I'm so glad that I read this book. However, I'm not only glad I read this book but I'm glad I read it when I did. On December 7th, current Republican front runner Donald Trump made a startling comment about barring anyone of the Muslim religion from entering the country due to the religion's affiliation with ISIS and other terrorist groups. This was a shocking revelation and one I am completely against. Malala Yousafzai shared my opinion and made her own statement in regard to the proposal, stating that the more people

"speak out against Islam and against Muslims, the more terrorists we create. So it's important that whatever politicians say, whatever the media say, they should be really, really careful about it. If your intention is to stop terrorism, do not blame the whole population of Muslims for it because it cannot stop terrorism. It will radicalize more terrorists."

I stand behind Malala's words. Many people, especially in America, are so quick to attach the Muslim religion to terrorism. Saying that every Muslim is a terrorist is like saying every blonde is stupid. We all know it's a ridiculous stereotype and that comments like that will only anger people who they pertain to. Once again, I think Malala does the best job of speaking about her religion and the people who worship with her:

"Because of the Taliban, the whole world is claiming we are terrorists. This is not the case. We are peace-loving."

I think these are powerful words and I think the whole world should take a look at what Malala has to say. If everyone fought for equality in the same peaceful manner she does, who knows what the world could look like.