Overview
RBC Bronwen Wallace Award winner Noor Naga's bracing debut, a novel-in-verse about a young Muslim woman's romantic relationship with a married man and her ensuing crisis of faith.
Coocoo is new to Toronto. After years of bargaining with God to end her loneliness and receiving no answer, her faith is already worn threadbare when she meets her mirror-image; Muhammad is a professor and father of two. He's also married. Coocoo spirals and feels powerless to stop the transformation of her love into something at first desperate and obsessive, then finally cringing and animal, utterly without grace. Her best friend, Nouf, remains by her side no matter what. Together they reckon with the growing contradictions of Coocoo's life: being a practicing Muslim woman, still clinging to five daily prayers, even as she gives her body to a man who cannot keep it.
This wondrous--often funny and always fast-paced--verse-novel explores love and belonging and asks the questions: how long can a homeless love survive on the street?
Coocoo is new to Toronto. After years of bargaining with God to end her loneliness and receiving no answer, her faith is already worn threadbare when she meets her mirror-image; Muhammad is a professor and father of two. He's also married. Coocoo spirals and feels powerless to stop the transformation of her love into something at first desperate and obsessive, then finally cringing and animal, utterly without grace. Her best friend, Nouf, remains by her side no matter what. Together they reckon with the growing contradictions of Coocoo's life: being a practicing Muslim woman, still clinging to five daily prayers, even as she gives her body to a man who cannot keep it.
This wondrous--often funny and always fast-paced--verse-novel explores love and belonging and asks the questions: how long can a homeless love survive on the street?
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