Reviewed by Chloe T., Year 7, Cerdon College Merrylands
This book, You Must Be Layla, is an incredible book. Written by Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a Sudanese-born Australian, it touches on the migrant experience, exploring thought-provoking themes relevant to all teens and reveals a powerful new voice. Layla, the main character, has an incredibly weird personality. She is Sudanese and is loud, weird, random and funny.
When she came to Australia, it was new, and unfamiliar. She started at ISB with her twin brothers and her older brother. Layla always hung out with her best friend Dina, after school, during school and even at mosque. However, once Layla got older, she wanted to move on, she had big dreams to travel the world, and become an adventurer. She tried for a scholarship to a totally different school than ISB, as it had more privileges for Layla in order to make her dream come true. When she got it and was accepted, she had to leave ISB and Dina, her best friend, but Dina always had her back and never lost contact with her.
Layla thought that to make her first impression good, was to be herself, but that did not turn out well. Even though she made friends, she still had her ups and down, like getting kicked out of class, bullied and even suspended. This did not look good for her, but she had to find a way to redeem herself. She noticed that there is a competition for building stuff and Layla thought that this was her chance. She kept thinking, but she never could think of anything even after asking her tech teacher, Mr Gilvary, a very eccentric and fun teacher, who is also in charge of the competition.
She suddenly had a spark of an idea after eating and almost dying from a gummy worm. She was going to make an edible actuator (An actuator is a device that converts energy, like electrical, pneumatic, or hydraulic, into motion or force, enabling the movement of parts in a system). She somehow made it work and now her creation for the competition is Huggy Bears. It sounded kind of lame especially when she saw her biggest competitor, Peter Cox, the person who got Layla suspended. Then the bad news arose, Layla forgot to submit her paperwork and the only way she would be able to compete was to join Peter Cox’s group. Oh oh… She knew that this would turn out bad, but after some negotiation, she was allowed in the group and they won and made it to nationals. Peter then confronts his dad about his mistake and tells him that Layla is super smart and that’s how they won, because of her.
This book is such a great story and you should definitely read it. It is great and I rate it a 5 out of 5, absolutely incredible.
