A Good Country

March 27, 2017
Concluding a trilogy that began with 2009’s The Age of Orphans and continued with 2013’s The Walking, Khadivi’s stunning and timely portrait of the radicalization of a young Iranian-American man delicately examines the intersections between history, family, religion, and love, asking important questions about identity and our responsibility to the places we come from. Born and raised in southern California to immigrant parents, Rez Courdee is a typical American teenager: pushed to succeed at school and make his parents proud, he rebels with drugs and alcohol, partying, hooking up with girls, and spending long days in the sun on his surfboard. But he falls out with his group of friends after a disastrous surfing trip in Mexico and is welcomed instead into a circle of other children of immigrants who become targets of hate after a terror attack rocks the community. Encouraged by his new friends, Rez learns more about his ancestral heritage, Islam, and the ongoing war in Syria, slowly pulling away from who he was before and looking ahead into an unknown future. Khadivi masterfully succeeds in pulling off a deep and searching investigation into Rez’s journey from one world to another, following through on her relentlessly emotional vision all the way to its wrenching conclusion. This is a heartbreaking coming-of-age story about the world we live in now.

June 1, 2017

Rez Courdee, 14, is an excellent student who lives in Laguna Beach, CA, with his quiet, unreligious, but traditional Iranian parents. He breaks away from his image as an academic overachiever, trying pot and hooking up with girls. Surfer friends introduce Rez to the quest for the best waves, so he joins them for a trip to Mexico, which goes terribly wrong. The boys make it home, but they blame Rez for the trouble they get into. Lonely after his friends drop him, Rez is drawn to Fatima, who takes him to her mosque, and after a terrorist attack, he connects with others at school who, like him, have been scapegoated because of their religious background. He looks online for information about Islam, the religion of his ancestors, and is seduced by speeches calling for a new life in the new caliphate. A friend who has already left for Syria convinces Rez and Fatima to join him. Instead of taking the train to college, he and Fatima fool their families and fly to Syria, where they plan to marry. The story unfolds deftly, beautifully capturing the psychology of an American teen who goes down the path of radicalization; readers will understand what would motivate a sheltered, shortsighted young person to run away to join extremists. VERDICT Give this expertly written and stirring exploration of a timely subject to readers who enjoy novels that tackle global contemporary issues, such as Karan Mahajan's The Association of Small Bombs or Rabee Jaber's Confessions.-Karlan Sick, formerly at New York Public Library

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 1, 2017
How is it possible for a young man or woman raised by loving parents in a financially stable or even prosperous home to become radicalized? This is the question Khadivi (The Walking, 2013) posits in her engrossing third novel, which centers on Reza Courdee, an Iranian-American boy growing up in a posh Southern California beach town. Smart and studious Reza's first set of friends in high school are white stoners who introduce him to pot, girls, and surfing. But after a jaunt to Mexico goes awry, all but one of the boys shuns Reza, who is then befriended by a charismatic Muslim boy named Arash. When the brother of one of Reza's former friends is injured in the 2013 Boston Marathon attack, Reza and Arash find themselves isolated and targeted by their classmates. Arash turns to his faith, while Reza falls for Fatima, a beautiful friend of Arash's who is also becoming more devout. Reza's skepticism towards religion begins to crumble in the face of the everyday prejudice he is forced to battle. Khadivi's carefully crafted, masterful novel illustrates how the perfect storm of teenage cruelty, racism, and tragedy can create an extremist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017

In 2009, 14-year-old Alireza Courdee becomes a stoner while maintaining grades that make his ambitious immigrant parents proud. By 2013, he's in Syria with 200 other ISIS fighters. From Pushcart, Whiting, and Discover Great New Writers honoree Khadivi.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2017

At Laguna Prep, CA, all the kids seem to have money, cars, pools, and parents who don't seem to care what their offspring are up to. All except Rez (Alireza) Coudree, whose Iranian-born father has a low boiling point and a swift hand for his only son. Rez's perfect grades drop as he seeks to assimilate by experimenting with weed, hooking up for casual sex, and becoming addicted to surfing. An illicit road trip to Mexico results in a crime that drives a wedge between Rez and his all-American buddies, and he soon settles back into his studies, winning parent-pleasing awards and hanging out with guys named Arash or Omid. Rez soon falls for Fatima Hassani, ventures into a mosque, and gradually discovers the joy that comes from finding your tribe. Then bombs explode at the Boston Marathon. Suspense builds as microaggressions turn friend on friend, loyalties between country and culture tug at hearts, and the seeds of radicalism are sown. VERDICT Brilliantly channeling the minds of angst-filled teenagers with barely formed worldviews who seesaw between brash self-confidence and deflating insecurities, Whiting and Pushcart Prize winner Khadivi (The Walking) has written an important, smart, timely novel that rivals such standouts as Karan Mahajan's The Association of Small Bombs or Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. [See Prepub Alert, 12/5/16.]--Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2017
An American-born son of Iranian immigrants becomes radicalized.Rez Courdee is the son of well-to-do Iranian immigrants. His father is strict, his mother retiring. Rez performs well at his private Southern California high school. At first, Rez is a -typical- American teenager, blissfully numbing himself with surfing and drugs to the complexities of his life and world. But after the Boston Marathon and another massacre closer to home, Rez can't ignore the fact that he is treated with suspicion and prejudice by the same white community with which he has spent his entire life. Khadivi's (The Walking, 2013, etc.) latest novel is the story of a young man's gradual radicalization. A filmmaker as well as a writer, Khadivi is a massive talent, lyrical, evocative, and unsparing. Her latest work completes a loose trilogy of novels that traces a line of genealogy down from Rez's grandfather to his father to himself. But Rez's story stands on its own. His radicalization takes place gradually, the result of a countless number of small intertwining factors rather than one overwhelming reason. That makes Rez's journey believable, his psychological transition vivid and real. You'll sympathize with Rez even as you find yourself devastated by his ultimate choices. Khadivi's feat is a crucial one, especially at this moment in time, when young Muslim men are dehumanized by white Americans far more often than they are understood to be complicated, and individual, human beings. The book has only two small flaws. The first is that, though there is brief mention early on that Rez has a sister, she is never seen or heard from again. The second flaw, if it is a flaw, is one that afflicts all books, everywhere, and that is that the story, finally, must come to an end. You won't want the book to end. You will want to follow Rez. You will want to hear what happens next. A brilliant novel about a young man's reckoning with a flawed and violent world.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.