We pick up his Marvels and Oddities journal on March 8, four years after that Saturday at the Museum of Islamic Art.Įighteen now, Adam is a freshman in college, but it’s important to know that he has stopped going to classes two months ago. From that day, he vowed to record the marvels he knew to be true and the oddities he wished weren’t.

Then something clicked in his mind: Maybe that’s what living is-recognizing the marvels and oddities around you.įrom that day, he vowed to record the marvels he knew to be true and the oddities he wished weren’t.Īdam, being Adam, found himself marveling more than ruminating on the weird bits of existing. He stood there thinking about this grand title for a long moment. Once he got close, he was rewarded with the name of the manuscript that housed this simple tree sketch: The Marvels of Creation and the Oddities of Existence. (When he thinks about it now, his guess is thus: Trees were kind of missing in the landscape he found himself in at the time, and so he was hungry for them.) He didn’t know why this tree caused him to stride forward as if magnetized. It wasn’t particularly striking or artistic. On the morning of Saturday, March 14, fourteen-year-old Adam Chen went to the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.Ī thirteenth-century drawing of a tree caught his gaze. Take a look at the stunning cover - starring New York-based fashionista - and read an excerpt from the book below. Love From A To Z goes on sale May 19, 2019, but you can pre-order a copy now.

Both Zayneb and Adam keep their true thoughts and pains hidden from everyone, locked away in their journals of marvels and oddities. These days, he's simply focused on keeping the memory of his mom alive for his younger sister and hiding his disease from his grieving father. But on her journey, her path crosses with Adam, a college student who stopped going to classes two months ago, after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. On sale in May 2019, Love From A To Z is an essential read about growing up as a Muslim in America, about life with multiple sclerosis, and about the redeeming power of love.Īfter Zayneb gets suspended for calling out an Islamophobic teacher, her parents decide to send her to her aunt's house in Doha, Qatar for an early start to spring break. Ali's debut novel, Saints & Misfits, you won't want to miss her next book, Love From A To Z, a spring break romance that tackles big issues, like Islamophobia, political anger, family, and life with a degenerative disease.

Love from a to z book