Undivided

March 9, 2015
Can a Christian and a Muslim work through their differences to find peace? Patricia Raybon (I Told the Mountain to Move) and daughter Alana Raybon try to do just that by sharing their thoughts in alternating passages. Alana’s conversion to Islam causes estrangement for a decade before the two agree to start talking. The process proves difficult, and the authors seem to find it easier to share thoughts with the reader than with each other. Patricia hurts over a lost daughter who has turned from her Christian roots; Alana resents her mother’s judgments (which she feels are influenced by news reports) and the assumption that she doesn’t know God too. By examining their motives, recognizing prejudices, and putting faith first, the women discover that their approach toward each other in love is more important than solving any conflict. Some areas aren’t explored, like details about Alana’s conversion and how Patricia and her husband feel about their grandchildren being raised as Muslims. This interfaith encounter illustrates how deeply love and difference are rooted. Agent: Ann Spangler, Ann Spangler and Associates.

April 1, 2015

Journalist Raybon (My First White Friend) firmly believes that Jesus is the only way for humans to know God; and her daughter's conversion to Islam caused a decade of religious tension between the two. The plot of this mother-daughter dialog centers on the mother's movement from dogmatism and media-inspired stereotyping of her daughter's religion to loving acceptance (but never quite affirmation) within herself of her daughter's Muslim identity. Her reflections are peppered with Bible quotations, sermonic insights, and an internal struggle to be as loving and accepting as Jesus, while the daughter's contributions focus more on daily Muslim American life. Although Raybon expresses substantial progress over the course of the book, her daughter admits to lingering doubt that her mother's evolving views are real. VERDICT The author's emotional anguish in the work's initial passages will make many readers feel uncomfortable, like voyeurs reading a secret diary, but conservative Christian readers may identify with her trials. However, broader theoretical, theological, and social-psychological frameworks that could give contexts for understanding the complexities of their relationship are not addressed.--Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2015
Faith divides countries, but it can also divide families, as this moving, honest memoir attests. Patricia Raybon is Christian; her daughter, Alana Raybon, converted to Islam, and the gulf between them has been huge, even 10 years after the conversion. They talked but not about the elephant in the room: faith. They talked around it, pretending it wasn't there, that is, until now. I wish she wasn't a Muslim, the elder Raybon begins. So now I've said it. Mother and daughter take turns offering versions of their own stories, their own beliefs, and their own experiences. Alana, for example, discusses the reasons why she became a Muslim ( My answers aren't simple. And neither is my life ). In the pages of this book, as in life, they try to understand each other and listen to each other and respect each other, finding common ground in their differences. It isn't easylife gets in the way, time gets in the way, attitudes get in the waybut they persevere and begin the healing. A personal and especially timely story about mothers and daughters and interfaith understanding.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

July 27, 2015
In this joint memoir, an evangelical Christian mother and her Muslim daughter try to come to terms with the daughter’s conversion to Islam over a decade ago. Althens, who reads the mother’s perspective, has a soft and careful voice that feels at times too reticent for the assertive statements she makes about absolute truth. Chitescu-Weik’s performance is interesting and animated, but her girlish voice sounds like she is playing a teenager rather than a teacher in her early 30s. At times, her voice also fades off at the end of her sentences, making her difficult to understand. Both women make occasional pronunciation errors with Islam (pronouncing Eid as “Ide” instead of “Eed,” for example). A Thomas Nelson/W hardcover.