| Description |
239 pages ; 25 cm |
| Summary |
"Laguna Beach, California, 2009. Alireza Courdee, a fourteen-year-old straight-A student and chemistry whiz, takes his first hit of pot. In as long as it takes to inhale and exhale, he is transformed from the high-achieving son of Iranian immigrants into a happy-go-lucky stoner. He loses his virginity, takes up surfing, and sneaks away to all-night raves. For the first time, Reza--now Rez--feels like an American teen. Life is smooth; even lying to his strict father comes easily. But then he changes again, falling out with the bad boy surfers and in with a group of kids more awake to the world around them, who share his background, and whose ideas fill him with a very different sense of purpose. Within a year, Reza and two friends are making their way to Syria to join in the fight. Timely, nuanced, and emotionally forceful, A Good Country is a gorgeous meditation on modern life, religious radicalization, and a young man caught among vastly different worlds. What we are left with at the dramatic end is not an assessment of good or evil, east versus west, but a lingering question that applies to all souls: Does a person decide how to live, or is their life decided for them? "-- Provided by publisher. |
| Subject |
FICTION -- Literary.
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FICTION -- Coming of Age.
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Iranian American teenagers -- Fiction.
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Iranian Americans -- Fiction.
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Radicalization -- Fiction.
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Laguna Beach (Calif.) -- Fiction.
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Syria -- History -- Civil War, 2011- -- Fiction.
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| Genre/Form |
Bildungsromans.
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Bildungsromans.
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| ISBN |
9781632865847 (hardback) |
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163286584X (hardback) |
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