Book Review: You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen

‘You Truly Assumed’ by Laila Sabreen was published in 2022, it is a split narrative which follows three different young black Muslim women in America, Sabriya, Zakat and Farah in the fallout of a terrorist attack in Washington D.C.

Sabriya is a ballerina.

Zakat is an artist

Farah is a computer programmer.

They are all victims of societal racism and Islamophobia.

After typing a cathartic rant on a digital blogging platform, Sabriya ends up launching a blog, ‘You Truly Assumed’, which blossoms into a digital space where young, Muslim women can congregate and express themselves.

Zakat goes to an all-girls Islamic school in Georgia, and is forced to encounter a girl she knew from childhood, Lucy, who made an inappropriate comment about Zakat’s hijab, and never got the closure of an apology. Lucy joins the team at a local bookstore, where Zakat and her best friend work, causing friction between the girls because while Zakat’s friend wants to forgive Lucy, Zakat doesn’t.

Farah encounters another Muslim girl at a computer programming course in Boston, where she hears about Kadijah, a girl who was murdered in an attack at a Mosque. The death of another young, black, Muslim girl around her age, makes Farah want to take action, not just online, but in person.

While the overarching plot of ‘You Truly Assumed’ is about Islamaphobia, each strain of the narrative includes different events in young women’s lives, Zakat struggles with the expectations of her family, and having to restrict how she expresses her passion in art, and being a Muslim outside of her safe haven small town. Meanwhile, Brie, struggles with budding feelings she is catching for a boy she thought was too much, and really corny, when they are paired together as part of a volunteering effort, and Farah grapples with the idea of a long-distance relationship and establishing ties with her father, who has started a family after moving away.

I loved this book. There was a lot of love in the story, and shows the strength of community, online and off. Each character has a strong, distinctive personality, and their own individual struggles as they come together, and share joy and build a community and cross-country friendships. It expresses the value of online friendships and faith, and it was such a powerful, poignant book.

And that ending, oh my goodness. Farah’s parting words were just the perfect emalgamation of the ethos of Sabreen’s work as a whole, as if I couldn’t love this book more:

‘Don’t be afraid to tell your story, in whatever form that takes for you. The world needs it.’