Finding My Way: A Memoir
The point of her new book is for other people (particularly young women) to see the real Malala behind the icon — funny, a bit rebellious, insecure, doing badly in university exams, falling for the wrong guy, then meeting the right one ... This isn’t the Yousafzai you are expecting. This is Eat Pray Love for activists ... The romance that enlivens the book might make its conclusion, about her grief at the situation of girls living under Taliban rule, feel jarring. But I know from talking to her how heartfelt this is.
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Her profound disgust at the abandonment of Afghan women and girls...makes for some of the strongest passages in the book ... But this is far from a polemical work. The theme of girls’ education cedes the centre stage to the personal details of her coming-of-age ... Readers should not expect a book-length discourse on women’s rights. More than anything, the memoir is a paean to the joys of female friendship. It’s at its most vivid when describing life as a schoolgirl in the Swat Valley ... Disappointingly, the book does not reflect much engagement with the subject matter of her degree in philosophy, politics and economics. As Yousafzai writes, her social life at college took over somewhat, and her ability to focus on coursework was challenged by the pressure of remaining her family’s primary breadwinner. At times, however, this reader feared the prominence given to trivial dialogue and college high jinks was somewhat unhelpful to the women’s education cause. Nevertheless, the work is honest and relatable.
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Sees Malala wresting back the story of her own life ... It turns out that being a student of life can be a worthy vocation, too.
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