When I found this book on the library’s to-be-shelved cart I was immediately intrigued. IraqiGirl is a compilation of real blog posts written by Hadiya, a then 15-year-old girl living in US-occupied Iraq. Her narrative is reminiscent of The Diary of a Young Girl (by Anne Frank), and in a way, Hadiya is the Anne Frank of the 21st century. I’m sure I’m not the only one to make that connection.
But Hadiya’s world is much different than Anne’s. Aside from bearing witness to different wars (duh), Hadiya lives in the information age. Her blog is public, and so are her political opinions. She keeps her identity a secret, but people can still attack her in the comments section of her blog — not that she can’t handle it. In this book, you see Hadiya struggle between wanting to voice her opinions of American soldiers and the war in her country, and wanting to talk about more innocuous topics such as her bedroom and drawings. But we soon learn that pretty much everything in Hadiya’s life is tainted by the war.
Hadiya’s blog lives on here. I visited it today and read that she’s well into pharmacy school!
Midnight Cheesecake 