I’m just me book review

By Amina

The book “I’m just me” was written by M.G. Higgins in 2014. The book is about our two main
characters Mia and Nasreen and how despite being different they both stand out at
Arondale High, and how that leads to their friendship.

Nasreen, the Pakistani Muslim girl has been used to all the bullying and nasty comments in
school, but one day she sees a new girl, Mia a black girl. Mia has just moved in with her
grandma and enrolled at Arondale high. On her first day Mia gets on the school bus she sees
Nasreen, a Muslim girl. She decides to sit next to her because they both stand out and that’s
what starts this beautiful friendship. They’re in the same calculus class and they decide to
talk. They go from strangers to friends with an unbreakable bond. They eat lunch together,
share secrets and visit each other's homes, sometimes it can be uncomfortable due to their
differences but that’s all right. One day Nasreen gets sent a link by an anonymous person,
not knowing better she clicks on it to find a pole called “The ugliest girl at Arondale high” and
sees herself at the top. She feels sick to her stomach just looking at it. Thousands of thoughts
floated around in her had but telling Mia seemed like the best solution. Mia tells her to
ignore it which isn’t exactly the advice she was looking for, but she decides to ignore it
anyway. Going to school becomes 10x worse for her and she even gets sexually harassed by
kyle one of her bullies in school. After all this harassment they both decide to forget their
original plan to ignore them and instead take matters into their own hands.

The first thing they do is to message the anonymous person that sent her the link. They ask
to meet up at a specific place at school and surprisingly the anonymous person agrees.
Walking to school nervous Mia and Nasreen are shocked M

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elvin Cho from their AP calculus class. He gives them the info about who started the poll and
they’re not shocked that Samantha, one of their biggest bullies started it. After getting the
numbers of the people who took part in the poll from Melvin, they start messaging them on
an anonymous account called “Bad girlz”. They send messages trying to turn Samantha and
her friends against each other. Then it was Kyle's turn, they find a nude picture of him and
threaten to leak it if he doesn’t stop. The next day they get to school and no one’s bothering
them even Samantha and kyle. The feeling of power doesn’t last long Mia gets a letter
threatening to kill her, she’s worried and anxious so she decides to bring a knife to school.
Just when they thought no one knew the anonymous account was them Samantha goes up
to them and says I know your “bad girls, Nasreen” shocked Nasreen tries to play it cool, but
it doesn’t work. Samantha becomes livid and tries to hit Nasreen but my grabs the knife out
of her bag and threatens Samantha and her minions with it.

Everyone is shocked and once the teachers arrive, they are all called to the principal’s office.
Mia tries to explain that she was threatened and thought kyle was behind it, but the teacher
showed obvious favouritism towards kyle and expelled Mia and suspended kyle for 2 days.
But he could’ve sent her to jail but decided not to so she’s still grateful. Nasreen is shocked
by it all but luckily doesn’t get any punishment. After that Mia has a talk with her
grandmother who she was sort of uncomfortable with before but now they're on good
terms. She enrols in another school where people aren’t so bad. After not talking with
Nasreen for a while thinking she doesn’t want to be friends after the whole knife situation
Mia finally decides to call her. Nasreen explains how she didn’t ignore her but wasn’t sure if
she wanted to talk. Mia clarifies that everything is okay at her new school and that she might
re-enrols at Arondale high for the fall semester. She thought about staying at her new school
because her grandma could afford two more semesters, but she spoke with her mother in
prison that helped her decide.

“What do you want” – Mia’s mother

“Nasreen is a good friend. I’d like to spend my last year of high school with her” – Mia

“Then go to Arondale” -Mia’s mother

Returning to Arondale high is difficult for Mia but this time it isn’t about her being black but
because of her reputation. But it’s a bit different this time now it isn’t just her and Nasreen,
Melvin, and two students from their AP calculus class named Allie and Jacob. Even though
they now have a friend group it still feels off sitting in the cafeteria instead of outside. The
principal announces an anti-bullying program will be held due to all the bullying at AHS
looking directly at Mia and Nasreen. Three weeks into the school year he calls the two to ask
if they could share their experiences with bullying at the first assembly for the program. He
then tells them in a suspicious tone that they can think about it and then they excuse
themselves from the office. At lunch, Mia asked Nasreen if she was going to participate
thinking she would say no but instead, Nasreen says that she wants to do it. “How are
people going to know what it's like if we don’t tell them?” Nasreen clarifies. “Well, you do
have a point” Mia agrees. The book then ends with Nasreen saying “My name is Nasreen, I'm
going to tell you how it feels to be me”.

Nasreen is a Pakistani muslim girl, she’s smart and kind yet she gets bullied at school for
simply being “different”. She faces a ton of racism and fades into the background because of
it. She finds comfort in her new friend Mia a black girl who entered the school. Throughout
the book we can see her develop “confidence” after standing up for herself and becoming a
part of a group. But she’s still insecure and thinks she should be able to be herself without
being bullied even without friends. She’s important to the plot because of her perspective of
the bullying and starting the anonymous account called “bad girlz” that lead to her
confronting her bullies but also leading to Mia being expelled.

One of the moments I find most important is when Mia pulls a knife out of her bag. The
tension rises and there’s a lot of changes happening. She gets expelled and thinks Nasreen
doesn’t want anything to do with her because of it possibly ruining their friendship. But on
the other side Nasreen is nervous Mia doesn’t want to talk to her and is nervous the bullies
might want revenge. This moment also leads to kyle, Samantha and her friends bullying
toning down, Mia finally talking to her mom and her also getting along with her grandma.

In my opinion the book portrays bullying, racism and being insecure in a great way. It shows
the effects of it in diverse ways such as Nasreen fading into the background and Mia faking
confidence to be left alone. The fact that it shows both their point of views instead of one
makes the story more interesting, shows how to different people react to the same scenario,
and presents religious as well as racial discrimination. Now the only flaw that I picked upon is
how stereotypical it is. It’s common for both east and south Asians in media to be portrayed
as overly smart or nerds like Ravi from the tv show Jessie or Tiffany from the tv show bunkd.
In this case it’s Melvin Cho in their AP calculus class and our main character Nasreen falling
into this stereotypical narrative.
Overall, it’s a good book that represents the hardships of being different and bullying. I
would recommend for people over 13 as the book has some vulgare language and some
disturbing moments such as sexual assault and mentions of nudes. I’ll give it 4/5 stars.