Ten Things I Hate About Me By Randa Abdel-Fattah

Who Am I? Jamie or Jamilah?

At school I'm Aussie-blonde Jamie - one of the crowd

At home I'm Muslim Jamilah - driven mad by my Stone Age dad

I should win an Oscar for my acting skills. But I can't keep it up for much longer ...



Ten Things is about Jamie, a teenage girl from Sydney’s south west who lives two lives: at school and in the outside world she is ‘Jamie’, a bottle-blonde with an apparently Anglo Aussie background; at home she is ‘Jamilah’ a Lebanese-Muslim who is proud of her cultural identity. Jamie struggles to maintain her two personas as the rules of her over-protective father collide with the normal adolescence she perceives other teenagers to have and which she so desires.

Life appears to be looking up for Jamie when the most popular boy in school begins to show an interest in her. Added to that she gets an after-school job and makes an email friend, John, the only person with whom she can be completely honest. However her fate as a social outcast appears sealed when her father’s Stone Age Charter of Curfew Rights threatens to prevent her attending the much-anticipated Year 10 formal and her Arabic band is hired to play at the formal.

The only way she'll be allowed to attend is by revealing her true identity. Will she risk it all? And does she know who she is... Jamie or Jamilah?