Tuesday, February 7, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Loophole by Naz Kutub

 


The Loophole is a YA modern fantasy novel - maybe (more on that below) - featuring a gay Indian muslim teen protagonist Sy who winds up on a journey around the world to try to find and reconnect with his ex, a boy who left him to go help people around the world. The story has a fantasy-esque framing, featuring a girl Reggie who offers to help Sy by granting him three wishes...but who might be more drunken rich girl than magical, and occasionally tells a myth of a man who goes into the underworld with the help of a djinn in order to try to get back the woman he loved.

But mainly the point of this story is Sy's self discovery about himself, about issues in the world, and the importance of family and loved ones and sticking up for them and up to them. And the result is a short novel, but one that works fairly well, and is very enjoyable for what it is. Queer YA Muslim readers, or just Queer YA readers, will especially appreciate this story that talks to what is a very real group out there who might be suffering in some ways just like Sy.

Trigger Warning: Parental Abuse (Corporal Punishment), Homophobia, Family Casting one out due to Homophobia, Islamophobia. All of these events, though hard to read, are done purposefully and without any gratuity, as this is the story of one boy's attempts to overcome many of these atrocities.

----------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------
Months ago, Sy was happy - sure he was a closeted Muslim teen living with a father who would surely beat him if he discovered Sy's sexuality, but he had Farouk, a fellow muslim boy he loved and who loved him back. But when Farouk saw some of the awful things happening around the world, Farouk decided to leave the US and try to help...and Sy wasn't able to join him. Now, months later, Sy is depressed and miserable while working at his coffee shop job, wondering what could have been.

So when a mysterious ditzy girl appears at the coffee house and offers him three wishes, Sy thinks she's merely crazy. But when his first wish for money comes true, with more money than he ever expected put into his bank account, Sy wonders if this girl, Reggie, might be more than the drunken rich girl she appears and might actually be magical. And when the secret of his sexuality comes out and forces Sy out of his house, Sy decides to use his remaining wishes with Reggie to go out and find Farouk.

But to do so will take Sy around the world all in search of a boy who may no longer want him back. And that world is a dangerous place for single teen muslim boys, with no companions other than a girl in Reggie who may be just as undependable as she seems....
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The Loophole is told almost exclusively from Sy's point of view except for occasional segments which tell an Orpheus/Eurydice-esque myth of a man using his wishes from a Djinn to try and go into the Underworld to restore to life his beloved. Obviously this story is connected to the main narrative (or seems to be), which otherwise tries to hide whether or not there is anything fantastical going on at all - after all, nothing Reggie does could be accomplished just as well by some crazy rich girl, and Reggie's actions and nonchalance towards the dangers Sy gets into do suggest she is truly such a person. The "Is she or Is she magical" question, and of course is she or is she not a Djinn question, hangs over this plot for the entire book length...but thankfully the book does not depend upon it.

Instead, the book depends upon Sy's journey as he deals with his father's homophobia, his own depressed state upon being left by the boy he loves, and his own awakening to the dangers of the world towards brown Muslim boys like himself and of the importance of those he loves. Sy is a really understandable and easy to root for character, as you can easily understand what made him this way, how his hypocritical (he can have two wives, but gay men are blasphemous!) homophobic father made him whimper and cower in fear, how he wasn't ready to travel the world with a boy he loved and leave his family, and how those decisions and his lack of support other than from one friend make him uncertain about what there is in life for him. And well, while in another author's hands Sy's lack of understanding of islamophobia and dangers in the world might seem naive, here it's understandable as the result of him having far more present problems (despite his mother's overreactions), so his struggles to deal with having to confront that islamophobia head on are really understandable.

And the journey Sy takes over the course of the plot is excellent and avoids some of the pitfalls I worried would occur in this narrative - especially in regards to his resolution with Farouk. Here the reader sees Sy confronting homophobia and Islamophobia in places across the world, having to struggle to survive and find answers in places he is unfamiliar with...and yet also having revelations about himself, about grace, and about who he can possibly be with the people he can truly love in the future. Sy finds a place for himself, where he can stand up for himself without giving in to anything, and the result very much works.

Is this a must read book or a revelatory book in any way? No, but it's a very good one at being what it is and will absolutely speak to a certain type of reader who could use this book, and Sy's journey, to show them there is a path forward for people like them. Recommended.

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