Books about Perth, and does my head look big in this?

[sqbr]

I just read "Does my head look big in this" by Randa Abdel-Fattah, a cheery YA novel about a Australian-Palestinian-Muslim girl who's just decided to wear the hijab, and her general hijinks and life. I enjoyed it overall, my main problem was that it was, well, a YA book about Life Love and Self-Identity, and I'm not a big fan of that genre (especially as a not-that-young adult) but I can't blame the book for that. It got a bit anvilicious, issues-driven and preachy here and there ("Be yourself!" "There are many ways to be muslim!" etc) but that goes with the genre. It reminded me a bit of "Looking for Alibrandi", but was more cheery.

Anyway, it was set in Melbourne which (like melberon's recent posts) made me feel like going back to Melbourne and eating lots of gelato and pasta etc, but also made me think back to my youth and the fact that I don't remember ever reading any YA books set in Perth that I could identify with. In general, I can't think of any books (or fiction in general) set in Perth which are about normal urban life (especially from a female pov), they're all about The Sea and The Bush and The Past and Being A Man. It feels like authors think there's no point telling urban stories about anywhere east of Melbourne :/

So can you guys think of any? And, second and harder question, any you'd recommend?
I'm almost certainly missing something obvious. And no, short stories Do Not Count (well, unless you really HAVE to mention it :))


Anyway, back to the book, as was somewhat transparently the intent I did learn a bit about life for muslim australians. The only muslim australian I've ever really spoken to was Natalie Kettleson (name probably misremembered!) back in highschool, and she made an effort not to mention it very much (I only found out when she asked if there was any alcohol in a black forest cake we had for german class)
I semi-befriended my lebanese-muslim neighbour back in Maylands, but she was in a constant state of culture shock that went well beyond religious differences (she was a very recent immigrant, and was much better settled in by the time they left)
So, yeah, it was interesting. Overall I found her very easy to relate to, especially when I remembered back to when I was christian, though I had trouble getting my head around the "no boyfriends/kissing before marriage" thing (I have trouble enough with the "no sex before marriage" thing, I find the whole idea rather alien as someone whose parents got married when I was six) until I thought "Well, Jane Austen would have felt the same way" :) It got me thinking about my own boundaries and choices: I have no specific religious/moral imperative not to go around in skimpy clothing or be promiscuous, and yet (by local standards) I do neither, and on the whole don't wear makeup or flirt or touch people. So I definitely understand how setting up those sorts of boundaries can actually be very freeing, and how you can still be accepting of other people making different choices. Hmm.

oyceter has a nice review here, and it was her rec relating to 50books_poc that got me to read it in the first place.

Comments

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

I read a few based on Perth (which you know, strangely enough I couldn't relate to at all, to the shock of some teachers). I wish I was just bitching about Tim Winton in that statement too.

From memory one was called LA Postcards, which I can't actually find online, and I can't remember the authors name, and I can only vaguely remember it. So you know I could be making this entire thing up. It was about a boy though. Or maybe it told the point of view of a girl as well, she definitely had a part in the story.

Mind you, I can't remember reading all that many books about normal rural life (especially for a townie in the south west) either that particularly grabbed me. I can remember a few desert/wheatbelt type ones that I enjoyed though.

I think though, Tim Winton kinda has the market on those kinda books in WA, which is a shame, because it kinda means nothing good gets written. There's also the fact that the majority of the population do live in the East side of Australia, and as such there's larger groups of urban artist/hippy kinda areas in those cities, and its always easier to write about what you're surrounded by. :P

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, I know, demographics are not on my side, doesn't mean a girl can't dream :)