Jameela Green Ruins Everything by Zarqa Nawaz

Jameela Green Ruins Everything

by Zarqa Nawaz

“I think we got off on the wrong foot, with you telling me I had to be killed and then me getting all upset about it. Let’s start again. My name is Jameela, and I’m a writer. What do you do, besides . . . assassinations? Is that a hobby or more of a full-time thing?” 

Jameela Green has only one wish: to see her memoir on the New York Times bestseller list. When that doesn’t work out, she decides that her best next step is to make a deal with God, so she heads over to her local mosque. The idealistic new imam, Ibrahim Sultan, is appalled by Jameela’s shallowness but agrees to assist her, on one condition—that she perform a good deed. 

Jameela reluctantly accepts his terms, kicking off a series of unfortunate events. The homeless man they try to help gets recruited by a terrorist group, causing federal authorities to become suspicious of Ibrahim. When the imam mysteriously disappears, Jameela is certain that the CIA has captured her new friend for interrogation and possibly torture. 

Despite having no talent for this sort of thing, Jameela decides to set off on a one-woman operation to rescue him. Her quest soon lands her at the center of an international plan targeting the leader of the terrorist organization—a scheme that puts Jameela and count-less others, including her hapless husband and clever but disapproving daughter, at risk. 

A no-holds-barred satire about the international cost of the American Dream, Jameela Green Ruins Everything is a compulsively readable, darkly comedic, yet unexpectedly touching story of one woman’s search for meaning and connection.

Reviewed by empressbrooke on

3 of 5 stars

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This book reminds me a lot of the 1980s movie Top Secret! with its slapstick and absurd tone. Or, if you weren't obsessed with Val Kilmer like I was when I was a teenager, Airplane! might be the more well known movie with that same style. That isn't really my favorite type of humor, but it did make for a very quick read and I did enjoy that a slapstick satire by a Muslim author about Western meddling in foreign affairs was completely unlike anything I have ever read.

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  • Started reading
  • 28 May, 2022: Finished reading
  • 28 May, 2022: Reviewed