Saints and Misfits

Who are the “saints” in your life? How about the misfits? And the monsters?

Janna’s life is brimming with all three, coincidentally also the three types of characters that her favorite author, Flannery O’Connor, likes to write about. Her elderly neighbor, Mr. Ram, is certainly a saint. Everyone thinks her brother Muhammed’s fiancé is one too. Most of her friends are misfits—the good kind.

And then there’s the monster. He’s supposedly perfect because he’s memorized the entire Quran and he even has the nerve to imply that Janna is “straying” from her faith. But Janna knows that he is about as far from perfect as you can get. It’s up to her to decide if she wants to tell her tight-knit community about the monster lurking beneath his pious image.

Alongside these serious questions, Janna is a creative teenage girl who really doesn’t want her college-age brother to move back into her bedroom. She also loves photography and spends a lot of time thinking about her crush’s forehead. She’s confident, loyal to her friends and hilariously deadpan. Saints and Sinners is a great read for anyone looking for a serious story that covers a lot of ground.

Saints and Misfits

Janna Yusuf, the daughter of the only divorced mother at their mosque, tries to make sense of the events that follow when her best friend’s cousin–a holy star in the Muslim community–attempts to assault her.