For Comoros, I read A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir and translated from French to English by Aneesa Abbas Higgins. It was the winner of the Prix Senghor 2016 and the English PEN Translates Award Prize, and both awards are well-deserved. I absolutely loved this book.

Eel is a seventeen-year-old young woman who is adrift at sea and waiting to die, and to pass the time, she is telling the story of how she ended up in her predicament. The entire story is told in a single sentence, giving it a sense of manic urgency. This 217 page sentence is spoken by Eel, a snarky and irreverent Comorian who reminded me of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye.

It has been DECADES since I read The Catcher in the Rye, but as I read A Girl Called Eel, I kept thinking how this is the first coming-of-age novel I have ever read that matches Catcher’s energy and vibe. As much as I adored Holden as a high schooler, Eel is an even more compelling narrator. She has a relatable snarkiness that most high schoolers would appreciate, and she covers issues ranging from typical high school drama to a woman’s place on the island of the Comorian island of Anjouan.

I kept debating whether this book is appropriate for a high school literature class as it deals with some dark issues like abortion and domestic violence, but I suspect I’ll be encouraging my daughter to read A Girl Called Eel in a few years when she starts high school. It’s a great way to spark some important conversations about the challenges of coming-of-age no matter where you live in the world.

As a final note, aside from being the best coming-of-age story that I’ve ever read, this book also beautifully described life on the Comorian island of Anjouan. I was so intrigued by the author’s descriptions that I watched this YouTube video that toured the Medina of an island in the Comoros, and it was exactly as I had been imagining it in my mind’s eye.