Everyone felt personally responsible for guiding me and fashioning me anew.

Initially, reading Gzar's memoir is taffy - confusing and hard to get through. As it unfolds, Gzar's memoir is transformed into a work of sheer beauty, true beauty that is earned with patience. This memoir is devastating - I found myself crying real tears. Gzar poignantly highlights the plight of queer people across the globe, as well as the devastation of both internal tyranny and external demonization and warfare on the Iraqi people. This memoir is so many things - a stunning love story, a travelogue, an exploration of queer identity and marginalization, a history of Islam, a documentation of the complexities of war, and a quintessentially human story. Gzar is a masterful storyteller who weaves disparate timelines and storylines into an achingly beautiful true tale of transnational, cross-cultural humanity.