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Amal is a young, Pakistani schoolgirl who gets overburdened with her heavy familial responsibilities on a regular basis. When her mother delivers the fifth child in the family, this almost drives Amal over the edge. After so many weeks, Amal finally seizes some time alone. She unwittingly insults the wealthy, heartless landlord of her small village while out at the market, at the time, not realizing exactly what she's done. Amal is punished with a sentence to servitude at Jawad Sahib's (the landlord's) estate. She loves learning, soaking up every last bit of information she can find, but Amal is bound to work at the estate until her family can pay off their debts, and with so much work to do around the huge mansion all the time, education is mostly out of the question. After learning of the behind-the-scenes atrocities Jawad Sahib is directly tied to, Amal must do something. She gets word out of secrets he wouldn't want being exposed, contributing to his later arrest. Amal and her fellow indentured servants are set free, all of their debt forgiven, and she goes home to her family, thankful for another chance at her dreams.

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Caring- Amal loves her family and friends and defends them no matter what, sometimes even to her own detriment. For example, when Amal and her slightly younger sister, Seema, are picking up the slack while their mother recovers from the pregnancy, Amal says, "You have to go to school.... I want you to go." Amal's father forbade her from returning to school for at least another week because of her familial responsibilities as the eldest child, and Seema feels bad about going to school when Amal can't. Still, Amal urges her younger sister to go and stays home to do the work herself, even if she really could use an extra set of helping hands.

Intelligent- Amal reads many advanced books and excels at school, pleasing her teachers and outshining her peers.

Motivated and Persistent- Even though there are many obstacles getting in the way of Amal's education and dreams, she pushes through and repeatedly shows the world that nothing will stop her. As she says, "If everyone decided nothing could change, nothing ever would."

Honest- Amal always says what she means, speaking her heart when she should and even when she shouldn't.

Brave- Amal is a young, adolescent girl who pushed her way through one of the most horrifying situations imaginable, almost all the way alone; that sounds pretty brave to me.

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I give Amal Unbound five out of five stars. Amal's struggles and triumphs are so vividly portrayed in this novel, opening readers' eyes to the hardships and beauty of other people's lives. Before reading this book, I had wildly different expectations. I assumed this was going to be like other young adult novels with their cheesy story lines and annoying plot devices. But no, Amal Unbound is real. There were important messages and new points of view. There were moments I cried. Aisha Saeed has created one of the most powerful books I have ever read, and I believe that every seventh grader in the country would benefit from reading it.

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The main type of conflict Amal faces in the book is character vs. society (external). Amal is only fighting for a simple thing (that she should have had in the first place, no question) when she becomes an indentured servant. Amal wanted to keep a pomegranate that she had just bought rather than give it away or sell it to Jawad Sahib as he had suggested. Her society is structured in a way that does not permit people born into poverty from rising to the top and does not prevent people born into wealth and privilege from staying in power forever, growing their empires, and never allowing anyone else to take charge. This is a serious problem.

Amal also faces character vs. self conflict (internal). Even though she often speaks her mind, Amal does keep some things in. For example, when her baby sister is born and her parents are devastated it wasn't a boy, Amal wonders if her parents felt the same way about her when she was little. In a way, Amal is battling herself with worthlessness on one side and value on the other.

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When life gets in the way of your dreams, you will always push through, letting nothing stop you.

When Amal is taken from her family and friends, snatched from everything she knows, her education slowly morphs into a hopeless impossibility. Most people would give up. Most people would just start feeling sorry for themselves instead of actively trying to make a desolate situation bright again. Amal did what she had to do because her inspiring motivation to become a teacher drove her to push through the pain and reach for the freedom.

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I disagree with almost all of Jawad Sahib's decisions as a leader. He is a ruthless, cold-hearted jerk who only cares about himself and never considers how what he does effects other people. For example, Amal becomes an indentured servant because she talked back to Jawad Sahib after his car hit her, he took a piece of her produce without permission, and he mocked her in front of her neighbors. In this situation, I (and hopefully most people) would run out of the car, check to make sure the person was okay, apologize, help pick up their scattered groceries, apologize once more, and move on, not caring at all about the person's attitude or manners. THEY JUST GOT HIT BY A CAR AND ARE BLEEDING ON THE GROUND! PLEASE, HAVE A LITTLE COMPASSION!

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I love the part where Amal gets word out of Jawad Sahib's crimes. Amal hears about a recent murder orchestrated by Jawad Sahib from he, himself, first. One of her fellow servants (Jawad Sahib's personal one, in fact) feeds Amal more information so she can know the sickening backstory and specifics when she goes to report the murder. This was such an inspiring act of selfless bravery, and I loved watching all the perfectly folded events come out from underneath one another in these seamlessly interlocked chapters.

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Metaphor and Hyperbole:

"Until now, I didn't realize how memories clumped together. Remembering one unlocked another and then another until you were drowning in a tidal wave threatening to sweep you away."
Page 121

This is a metaphor because Amal is comparing a flood of memories in her head to an actual, dangerous wave. This is also a form of hyperbole because of the exaggeration and drama; saying "drowning in a tidal wave threatening to sweep you away" in this context is going too far, way past reality.

Simile:

"But to call me a guest in the only place I ever belonged--the word cut like a jagged stone against my heart."
Page 161

This is a simile because Amal is presenting the word that hurt her feelings as a jagged stone that cut against her heart using the word "like."

Symbolism:

"The bright yellow building with the green door was so different from the gray and brick structures I was accustomed to. I liked its color. It was the color of hope."
Page 179

This is an example of symbolism because Amal is practically saying that the bright yellow and green colors represent or symbolize hope.

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In the beginning, Amal was a shy girl who mostly did what she was told and bent to accommodate others' needs into her life. For example, when her father forbade her from returning to school because of her familial obligations, she protested but then soon after accepted her fate. Although, after enduring some of the most unimaginably unfair circumstances in existence (indentured servitude), Amal saw things in a different way. One must always be ready to defend what they believe in, and one must never give up on their dreams, no matter how many people try to step in the way. Now Amal is a brave, upstanding citizen of her community who fights for what she wants and knows that opportunity won't just come knocking on the door, it has to be sought out.

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The prominent village landlord Amal was indentured to (Jawad Sahib) was already sickeningly wealthy but kept growing his fortune and maintaining power by continuously charging the people on their many debts from the past. Although Jawad Sahib had virtual control over an entire community of people, he had no qualifications to hold such authority and influence whatsoever; the only reason he was there is because he inherited his father's money and high rank in Pakistani society. After the final straw was pulled, Amal challenged Jawad Sahib, successfully bringing him down and saving her family and friends from many more horrific events in the future.

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In Pakistani society, almost all women are silenced and ignored, especially if they're poor. If these marginalized women were given a voice that would be heard by society, they would say that they are humans. They would tell the world that they deserve exactly the same luxuries and advantages in life as a white man who inherited a small fortune from his father just because he was lucky enough to be closely related and carry a Y chromosome. They would scream that society oppresses them just because of their sex and that that just doesn't make sense. But most don't have that voice; not yet.