Kamala Khan is a teenage girl, living in New Jersey with her family and struggling with her identity. At school, she's teased for bringing food that "smells weird" and condescended to about her own faith. The mocking nature of this concern troll goes over Kamala's head because she wants to be More than anything, she wants to belong and be comfortable, not an outsider who doesn't belong. One night, she sneaks out to go to a party which she was expressly forbidden and feels rejected once again. The partgoers assume that since she disobeyed her family, she rejects everything they stand for including her Pakistani heritage and Muslim faith. This friction between her culture and the schools dominant culture wears on her.
Each of Kamala's family members put their own expectations on how she should be behave and what she should become as well. Her father Yusuf wants her to focus on her studies and become a doctor. Her mother Muneeba is more worried about her becoming pregnant and keeps her away from boys. Kamala fulfilling her familial duties out in public is also very important to her. Kamala's older brother Aamir is incredibly devout and strict in his religious beliefs, much more than their parents, and wants her to live as he does. With all these people pulling Kamala in different directions, she has to decide what she wants for herself.
On the way home from the party, a fog engulfs her and she emerges with shapeshifting powers, looking exactly like Carol Danvers' Ms. Marvel. With this transformation, Kamala gets everything she thought she wanted. She becomes the norm she sees around her with blonde hair, pale skin, and a skin tight revealing outfit. However, her emotions don't match her expectation. She feels uncomfortable and exposed instead of confident and comfortable. Over the course of the book, Kamala becomes more comfortable with herself. She creates a unique costume, gets more used to her new polymorph powers, and decides that she wants to save people. Her first super hero act is saving the girl who was so mean to her because that's the right thing to do.
Kamala is just learning to be a superhero so she makes quite a few mistakes. She gets shot and accidentally discovers that shifting back to herself makes her heal instantly and simultaneously exposes her identity to a friend. Second, she fails trying to save her friend from Robot Spiders. Her perseverence is eventually rewarded in victory, but it took a few tries. Then, her commitments to her family suffer as she tries to save Jersey City from various threats. Through it all, Kamala doesn't lose herself and finds inspiration from her faith. She's a relatable character struggling to see who she wants to be and I can't wait to read more of her story.
My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins
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