It Won't Always Be Like This - Malaka Gharib

Author: Malaka Gharib

Illustrator: Malaka Gharib

Genre: Graphic Novel, Memoir

Rating: 2.5 stars.

Not exactly like I had expected. Should I blame the writing or my expectations, I wonder!?

“It Won't Always Be Like This” is supposed to be a graphic memoir about the American author’s time growing up with her father’s new family in Egypt. Beginning from when she was nine years old and discovers her father’s bride Hala, Malaka’s summer vacations aren’t the same again. Unlike her earlier fun visits, her vacation now is spent more with Hala as her father is busy with his job. Over the next fifteen years, each visit of Malaka to Egypt and later to Qatar is marked with multiple changes and adjustments, some of which are easy and some impossible to accept. But Malaka’s bond with Hala stays comparatively strong, and the story comes a full circle beginning and ending with their connection with each other.

This is a very quick read despite its being 220+ pages long. The author kept her interrelations with Hala as the core theme of this memoir, and the story sort of begins and ends with Hala. On the way, we see a glimpse of other topics such as cultural differences, the changing family dynamic (at least on her father’s side of the picture) and her views about the various cultures.

I had expected the memoir to be on the lines of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, which flows smoothly and covers multiple topics without losing the control of the key narrative. However, this memoir goes all over the place. Even after reading the entire book, I feel like I barely know the people involved. The continuity of the book is quite disjointed, and the storytelling feels incomplete. There are a lot of whats but absolutely no whys. (I later came to know that the author has another memoir titled “I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir”. It could be that some elements are covered in this book, but as this isn’t a series, each book should have been complete in itself.)

Malaka’s confusion over her identity and her struggles to fit in come out decently well in the story. As the daughter of a Filipino mother and an Egyptian father but growing up in the USA, her life would have been a complicated mishmash of three distinct cultures. However, she very clearly has a favourite culture and a part of me felt like she was ashamed of one half of her identity and irritated with the restrictions of the other. There is an underlying tone of American superiority and a condescending approach towards the other two cultures, both of which I did not appreciate. The writing does point out a couple of flaws in the American lifestyle, but most of the finger-pointing is towards the Egyptian mode of living. There are certain societies which are more traditional than America but this doesn’t make them flawed.

I liked the bond between Hala and Malaka, who, despite their very different upbringing, are quite similar in thinking but contrained by their different circumstances. The loneliness and isolation of the two women comes out well. I would have love to know more of Hala’s thinking, but I get why that couldn’t be a part of this book; it is from Malaka’s point of view after all. She only wrote what she saw or knew.

I wasn’t a fan of the art style at all. The cover style is gorgeous but the illustrations inside don’t match. I simply didn’t like the drawings, and considering this was a graphic memoir, this affected the experience greatly.

All in all, many things fell short of this being an enriching experience. I should have liked this coming-of-age story a lot more but came away with no strong feelings either way. It simply didn’t have the magic to create a long-lasting impact. I’ve read far better graphic memoirs and this won’t be counted among the memorable ones.

My thanks to Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “It Won’t Always Be like This”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.