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THE BAD MUSLIM DISCOUNT by Syed M. Masood | GGP Online Book Club
April 27, 2021 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm PDT
Please join us on Tuesday, April 27, 2021 at 7 PM PDT for a GGP Online Book Club discussion of THE BAD MUSLIM DISCOUNT by Syed M. Masood.
The Zoom meeting will be at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82405221338.
You can order a print copy at https://bit.ly/ggpBadMuslimDiscount or in audiobook from Libro.fm, GGP’s audiobook partner, at http://bit.ly/BadMuslimDiscountAB.
Staff Reviews
A charming novel of Muslim immigrants to the United States trying to find their way. Romance, humor, and tragedy and a Bay Area setting kept me listening in a long binge. The audiobook performance is very well done.— Mike
February 2021 Indie Next List
“I loved The Bad Muslim Discount so much I read the acknowledgements just so it wouldn’t end — and they were great, too! This is an insightful and funny novel about faith, family, and being a Muslim American today. Masood offers us a sharp perspective, a seamless style, and unforgettable characters, leaving the reader enriched for the experience.”
— Claire Benedict, Bear Pond Books, Montpelier, VT
Description
“Masood’s novel presents a stereoscopic, three-dimensional view of contemporary Muslim America: the way historical conflict in the Middle East lingers in individual lives, the way gossip travels in a close-knit immigrant community.” The New York Times Book Review
Following two families from Pakistan and Iraq in the 1990s to San Francisco in 2016, The Bad Muslim Discount is an inclusive, comic novel about Muslim immigrants finding their way in modern America.
It is 1995, and Anvar Faris is a restless, rebellious, and sharp-tongued boy doing his best to grow up in Karachi, Pakistan. As fundamentalism takes root within the social order and the zealots next door attempt to make Islam great again, his family decides, not quite unanimously, to start life over in California. Ironically, Anvar’s deeply devout mother and his model-Muslim brother adjust easily to life in America, while his fun-loving father can’t find anyone he relates to. For his part, Anvar fully commits to being a bad Muslim.
At the same time, thousands of miles away, Safwa, a young girl living in war-torn Baghdad with her grief-stricken, conservative father will find a very different and far more dangerous path to America. When Anvar and Safwa’s worlds collide as two remarkable, strong-willed adults, their contradictory, intertwined fates will rock their community, and families, to their core.
The Bad Muslim Discount is an irreverent, poignant, and often hysterically funny debut novel by an amazing new voice. With deep insight, warmth, and an irreverent sense of humor, Syed M. Masood examines universal questions of identity, faith (or lack thereof), and belonging through the lens of Muslim Americans.
About the Author
SYED M. MASOOD grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. A first-generation immigrant twice over, he has been a citizen of three different countries and nine different cities. He currently lives in Sacramento, California, where he is a practicing attorney.
Praise For…
“Masood offers sharp observations on religion, violence, and politics, and his clever choice to place the characters’ disparate experiences in parallel challenges Islamophobic stereotypes.” The New Yorker