Hanna Alkaf

A music loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut. Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied. A trip to the movies after school turns into a nightmare when the city erupts into violent race riots between the Chinese and the Malay. When gangsters come into the theater and hold movie-goers hostage, Mel, a Malay, is saved by a Chinese woman, but has to leave her best friend behind to die. On their journey through town, Mel sees for herself the devastation caused by the riots. In her village, a neighbor tells her that her mother, a nurse, was called in to help with the many bodies piling up at the hospital. Mel must survive on her own, with the help of a few kind strangers, until she finds her mother. But the djinn in her mind threatens her ability to cope.

The Weight of Our Sky

 I am both mesmerized by this little gesture of faith and jealous of her intimate relationship God. It always bothers me that I can't seem to connect with Him the way people like Auntie Bee and Mama can. The way I used to.

Haley

Auntie Bee regards him through narrowed eyes for a minute, then decides to let it go. "Did you eat?"

Vincent snorts. “We're in the middle of a riot and you can still ask me if I ate?"

"Yes, Ma, I ate!" His head is turned away so I can't see it, but I can feel the eye roll even from the back seat.

The Weight of Our Sky quotes

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