There was an amazing account of a sandstorm that had me wanting to wash dirt out of my teeth and rub the grit from my eyes. And the moving emotions of a lonely young girl trying to fit in to a new culture, seeing her romantic dreams of being a foreign missionary exchanged for disillusionment and then again for hope. The characters were very well developed, which is evident if you look at the details in the Character Spotlights that the author provided about Hannah and Karim. The portions of the story that were told "by" Karim used a voice that sounded like an Arab and not a Westerner.
The author told of Christian missionaries living with a Muslim tribe with the threat of persecution with great sensitivity and love towards the Muslim people. The story was obviously well-researched and included information on how God is working in the Muslim world. The mention of a dream of Jesus resulting in a heart open to hear the Gospel, though related to fictional characters, is something that really is happening around the Muslim world. I work at a Christian mission organization and have been hearing for years about this very thing happening. Just a few weeks ago I heard a story from a missionary in a Muslim country who heard from a student about a dream just like that. When he commented about how unusual that was, the student later told him that it really is not unusual, he had talked to at least 13 other people who had the same dream. :-)
While there was a fair amount of time spent going over Hannah's fears of what physical intimacy would be like, but there was nothing inappropriate or offensive about how it was done. I would not be concerned about my young nieces reading any of the story.
One of the issues that Hannah dealt with was a feeling of always being compared to others and found lacking. She struggled with the sense of not measuring up. The journey that she traveled in dealing with this was tender and touching.
Two quotes that I especially liked in the story, enough to make note so I could include it here is:
"If everyone only did what was safe, nothing would change."
"But I read, soul open to any stirrings of the Holy Spirit."
This review was originally posted on Among the Reads