107 pages • 3 hours read
Randa Abdel-FattahDoes My Head Look Big In This?
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 18-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary
Amal’s parents are celebrating their 26th wedding anniversary, with her father trying to surprise her mother by buying her Tiffany earrings and booking a fancy restaurant for dinner. Her mother makes Amal visit their neighbor, Mrs. Vaselli, as it is her birthday and she is lonely, with a gift of a turquoise shawl.
Once there, Amal is on edge with Mrs. Vaselli’s complaining, but she realizes just how alone Mrs. Vaselli is when she sees her unused tea set, and she decides to be nicer to her.
The next morning her mother shows off her earrings and her parents tell Amal that they skipped the restaurant and went for a kebab.
Chapter 19 Summary
While waiting for their teacher to show up for class, Tia asks Amal loudly about female circumcision, and whether she has had it done. Everyone is shocked, including Amal. Simone tells Tia to shut up, and Tia responds by body-shaming her. Josh reacts by protecting Simone and Tia finally stops, “with a mortified, angry pout” (121). After a few days, Amal is still shocked, but Adam approaches her, trying to explain that Tia must be “freaked out” (122), and lashing out. Amal berates him about his sexist attitude, but they end up joking about it.
Chapter 20 Summary
Amal is spending her mid-term break by doing her homework and talking on the phone with Adam. Simone cautions her not to show Adam that she has a crush on him. They like the same films and TV shows, and watch them together while on the phone. They discuss their family lives, and Adam opens up about sometimes wishing it were his dad who left instead of his mom, because they never communicate properly. He feels angry with both of his parents.
Chapter 21 Summary
Amal’s family is going to her Aunt Mandy’s birthday party. Her uncle’s house is a testament to their wish to assimilate and present themselves as pure Australians. Uncle Joe and Aunt Mandy usually invite their Australian friends or colleagues to their parties, trying to show how cosmopolitan they are; this time, the guest is Joe’s boss, Alan, and the hosts behave in a slightly ridiculous manner, trying to show off how well adjusted to Australian life they are, while Samantha and Amal giggle.
Chapter 22 Summary
On Friday evening, Amal is watching a movie at Leila’s house, when her brother, Hakan, comes in, and they start to fight. He came home late the night before, leaving the front door wide open. “What was it this time? Drugs? Alcohol?” (132), Leila asks. Hakan comments, “I’ll say and do what I want and nobody’s going to stop me!” (133), because their parents do not say anything to him because his mother adores him and his father fears Hakan will leave home forever if he tries to discipline him. Leila feels sad at the unfairness of it all, and does not care for her selfish brother.
Chapter 23 Summary
Amal decides to visit Mrs. Vaselli again, and she and her mother make biscuits for her to take over. When her neighbor opens the door, Amal glimpses the turquoise of the shawl they gave her, but the woman takes it off, so as not to reveal she is wearing it.
As they drink tea and eat scones and biscuits, Mrs. Vaselli tells Amal about her marriage at 14, and how she came to Australia with her husband looking for a better life, but finding only foreignness and loneliness. They barely spoke English, and while he was working in the factory, she would spend all of her time alone. She had several miscarriages. After a while, they opened up a fish and chips shop, and they would work there all day, every day. One day an inspector came over and yelled at her husband, and during that time Mrs. Vaselli miscarried but was afraid to mention it. When Amal asks her about the son she has, Mrs. Vaselli refuses to talk about it, and instead lights a cigarette. She tells Amal she hid her smoking before because she did not want Amal’s mother to think she was a bad woman, and not let Amal visit again.
Chapter 24 Summary
It is October, the start of spring in Australia, and Amal goes rollerblading with Simone, Eileen, Josh, and Adam. They have a great day, with Simone and Josh flirting, everybody riding a rollercoaster, and eating ice cream.
On a Sunday, Amal visits Mrs. Vaselli again, and this time she asks her directly about her son. He used to be married to a Greek woman but they had no children and they divorced. Then he married a Jehovah’s Witness and converted, so his parents stopped speaking to him. Although she is sad about this, Mrs. Vaselli says some things are like ash from a cigarette, in too many tiny pieces that one can never again gather and make whole.
That evening, Adam asks Amal if she thinks Josh and Simone would make a good couple. She calls Eileen and they fashion a perfect answer, so that it appears spontaneous, yet probing, and Amal waits half an hour before sending it, so as not to appear too intense.
Chapter 25 Summary
The next day, Amal waits for Adam to bring up the issue of Josh and Simone, but he does not, expecting her to mention it. They only realize this misunderstanding that night when they talk over the phone. During the break, they all play basketball, and Simone proves to be good at it, earning compliments from Josh and envy from Tia.
Later, over the phone, Adam tells Amal his mother phoned him the night before, and he is angry because “she expects to erase ten years of not being there for me by sending me some polo tops” (150). He tells her his father took him to a therapist once he started dating Charlene but Adam did not like the sessions, as the therapist wanted him to admit he feels guilty for his mom leaving, which he claims he does not. He indicates that Josh has expressed interest in Simone, and tells Amal he knows she will call her friends as soon as they finish the conversation. He is right, and Amal is both slightly irritated and amused.
Chapter 26 Summary
Mr. Pearse invites Amal for a talk about her prospects (he believes in her potential), and asks how she is coping with wearing the hijab. This makes Amal think about the stories she has heard about people being reluctant to hire hijab-wearing professionals. Leila tells her over the phone that her mother has found a 25-year-old mechanic as a potential husband. She wants to be a lawyer, but her mother is convinced no one would hire her.
Chapter 27 Summary
Mr. Parse selects Josh, Adam, and Amal to be one of the final two debating teams. They spend time in school preparing and joking around, and Adam asks Amal if she would come to his birthday party. She agrees, but first she has to get her parents to allow it, which they reluctantly do, giving her a curfew of 11 o’clock in the evening. Simone informs Amal that, because her dieting has not worked, she has decided to take up smoking because she heard it suppresses appetite.
Chapters 18-27 Analysis
In Chapters 18, 23, and 24, the author continues to build the character of Mrs. Vaselli, Amal’s Greek next-door neighbor. To achieve successful characterization the author utilizes an almost phonetic spelling of the way Mrs. Vaselli talks, because her broken English is a part of her foreign identity and of her fragile emotional state. Bringing Amal and her elderly neighbor together allows for a development of a unique relationship that helps Amal understand others better and grow as a person. Mrs. Vaselli’s initial gruffness in Chapters 5 and 6 (when she accuses Amal of secretly smoking, thus calling her “ze smoker” in Chapter 18), slowly melts away as she reveals her life story to Amal. Together with Leila’s mother, Mrs. Vaselli challenges Amal’s patience and her young and sometimes narrow understanding of life and human behavior, which eventually makes her appreciate both women as she grasps the hard choices they have had to make. In Chapter 23, Mrs. Vaselli’s story of marrying at 14 and her many miscarriages additionally awakens Amal to the privilege of her own position as a contemporary young woman in Australia. However, as Amal understands in Chapter 24 that Mrs. Vaselli has renounced her son because of his new religion, she finds parallels to her own recent experiences and this gives her motivation to insist that Mrs. Vaselli should reach out after so many years.
Chapter 19 opens up a significant cultural topic, female genital mutilation, through Tia Tamos’ brutal and thoughtless teasing of Amal. Female genital mutilation is a ritual practice present in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, that involves the removal of external genital organs of young girls. This horrible practice also finds its excuse in male dominance over women (patriarchy), as the process can cause serious health damage, and women are forever unable to enjoy sex. Although the UN has attempted to ban the ritual, many cultures still practice it, often in secret. Tia’s insensitive remarks to Amal remind us how many people are blind to the harsh realities of the modern world, and their lack of education and empathy perpetuates the negative cultural stereotypes.
Even Adam tries to defend Tia’s insensitivity, saying, “I think she’s freaked out about it and in her typical bitchy way sees you as the perfect target” (122), because he also sees Amal’s religiousness as something bizarre and “freaky.” His words once again provoke Amal’s anger, because when he behaves as a typical teenage boy (which often involves casual sexism—the idea that males are essentially different and superior to females), she loses sight of the witty and warm boy she likes so much. The author shows us the contrast between the two sides of their relationship by relating Amal and Adam’s long chats over the phone in Chapter 20, and thus foreshadows the events at Adam’s party (Chapter 28), where their differences of belief will cause a permanent rift between them.
Chapters 21 and 22 further explore cultural and social contrasts that form the thematic backbone of the novel. At Aunt Mandy’s birthday party (Chapter 21), Amal observes the sometimes desperate attempts of her close relations (especially Uncle Joe) in behaving more Australian than most Australians. At the root of his desire to assimilate is the idea that there is an Australian identity that is somehow other than his own, even though immigrants like him populate the whole country. His inferiority complex stems from the difference of his skin color and his religion and culture (as compared to the majority), but Amal understands that these are pressures that form and push from the outside, and that a person must look within themselves for their sense of self.
Chapter 22 utilizes Leila’s home situation (and her brother’s brutish behavior) once again, to underscore the contrast between the rights of men and women. The author depicts a traditional Turkish family, which has stayed petrified in their old-fashioned rules and traditions, but we can also draw a parallel with the way Adam behaves towards Amal, to understand that Leila’s situation is just a radicalized form of the behavior that exists everywhere. Just like Adam talks about “bloody female mood swings” (122), so Hakan can say to his sister, “watch your mouth, you bitch, got it?” (133), because in almost every society boys learn that they have rights and superiority over women, and the form their behavior will take depends just on the culture to which they belong and their family upbringing.
The realities of the patriarchal system that values men over women also include valuing white people over those of different skin color and many other discriminations (according to sexual orientation, religious beliefs, country of origin, education, etc.). In the novel, the author gives us the example of how Muslim girls learn in advance that there will be less opportunity for them in life because they wear a hijab, regardless of whether that will prove to be true. In Chapter 26, Amal concludes, “there’s nothing scarier than fearing your future won’t live up to all you’ve dreamed it to be” (155). If she were a white Christian girl, this sentiment would still hold true, as it does for every teenager on their way to adolescence, but for Amal this is doubly difficult because she has chosen to wear a hijab. She begins to understand that this personal choice stemming from her deep sense of religious belief might prevent her from becoming everything she can in life, due to prevalent prejudice and discriminatory attitude.
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