All-American Muslim Girl

The ALL-AMERICAN MUSLIM GIRL is 16-year-old Allie Abraham. With her red hair and hazel eyes, she doesn't fit the stereotype of a young Muslim woman and easily enters her new high school outside of Atlanta, becoming a JV cheerleader and joining the chorus and Quiz Bowl team. While the friends she's made are racially diverse, she hasn't told any of them that her family is Muslim. When Allie starts dating Wells Henderson, he seems like the perfect boyfriend (kind, smart, and handsome) -- until Allie discovers that his father is a famous ultraconservative and Islamophobic talk show host with views that Wells is adamant he doesn't share. Allie's father has always advised her to keep being Muslim on the down low, that it's safer for her if people don't know. But after he's almost thrown off a flight because a passenger hears him speaking in Arabic, and some of Allie's classmates make remarks about Muslims being terrorists, she begins to question whether she's turned her back on her heritage. Her family's never been religious, and Allie knows almost nothing about Islam, so she joins a group of girls who're studying the Qur'an and begins making friends with other Muslim students at her school. She trades in her signature retro style for longer skirts and more modest tops and has spirited discussions with girls in her study group about what is and isn't appropriate behavior when dating. Allie's also caught up in a web of secrets. Her mother knows about her studies, but they haven't told her father, whom she's certain will disapprove. And while Allie has told Wells she's Muslim, who knows what will happen when his father finds out?