Olive Witch audiobook

This book is exquisite. I've never read a memoir by a fellow Third Culture Kid and this experience changed my life. I cannot recommend this book enough, and not just for TCKs. Link to my full review to follow once I've placed it.

The writer's prose is poetic. This novel of poems and prose shows the inner thoughts of a sensitive soul, tormented with ideas of trying to fit in, in societies to which she does not belong, for her origins are elsewhere, and that origin is also lost to her since she has not lived there. So a Bangladeshi Muslim born in Africa, transported to America when young, forced to be diligent, religious, and to follow the path of knowledge as laid down by her strict parents, finds herself working very very hard to fit in. Read the novel to find out more. It is written from the heart and i found it a quick read, but also was taken up by the idea of how rootless a person may feel when she has no sense of belonging to any place. Ameer Hoque displays her talent for language and visual imagery. I would recommend this book. we all try to find ourselves in myriad ways, and this is a chronicle of one such search.

Beautifully written with such candorI thoroughly enjoyed reading Olive Witch. I usually don't like reading non-fiction but decided to read this after enjoying "The Lovers and the Leavers" by the same author. In Olive Witch, Abeer takes us on an adventure through three countries. Navigating her life experiences as a Bangladeshi born and raised in Nigeria then moving to America as a teenager then eventually getting to live in Bangladesh. Along the way she is candid about her struggles and coming of age. The struggle and eventual understanding with her immigrant parents is one many would relate with.This book left me wanting to know more of what happened after...it should be turned into a movie. Well worth the read. Thank you Abeer for sharing with us all!

Fascinating journey from childhood in Nigeria, and time in Bangladesh, and Philadelphia. She is a gutsy lady, strong young girl to face such immense changes and emerge with this can't-put-down-this memoir! I will look for future books from this wonderful author.

So luminous, in spite of the threads of blank dark that run through every chapter.

Love her writing style!

A very nostalgic book for me because I also moved from West Africa to North America around the same age that the author did. I relate to the descriptions and dialogues about language and cultural barriers in all three countries she lived in. I share the experiences of forgetting my first year in a new country as a defence mechanism, having no friends, being picked on etc. However, I gave this book a lower rating because of the brief exploration of the sexual exploitation of Elly by Pep (Elly is not brought up again) and instances of overt prejudice against other people of colour in the book that is not outwardly shunned (sometimes only inwardly shunned) by the author when she was a younger woman. Yet, I thought they were honest depictions of real things that happen with POC communities with people who can talk badly about other people with darker skin or who look like them. I just wish it was critically explained in the memoir.

I liked this book mainly because it appeared at the right time, while my mind was gasping for an island which might resemble 'home'. Also the fact that i could understand this book because i met Abeer at the jaipur literature fest and got a signed copy from her :)

An absolutely beautiful memoir about self-discovery and realization, and the conflict of identity for a Nigerian-raised Pennsylvania-teened Bangladeshi Muslim teen.

Raw, real, heart-wrenching when I read it. Left me with a lot of questions that I found myself wishing for answers to, and even more as time passed after I put the book down.

Olive Witch was an insightful and poetic autobiography. As another person who grew up at the nexus of multiple cultures, Hoque perfectly captured that sense of the search for home. The author finds a way to take her very unique path of finding herself and make it relatable. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is trying to piece together their own multicultural puzzle or enjoys beautiful first-person prose or anyone who can read.