From New Jersey to the Middle East: Former Hobokenite Publishes Novel

A new novel that centers on the Arab Spring and its influence on a New Jersey teenager will be published next month. The book was written by former Hoboken resident Patricia Dunn. 

Rebels By Accident is scheduled to hit stores on August 16 and is published by Alikai Press. 

The book tells the story of a revolution. "Not just the huge ones that happen on the streets with thousands marching," Dunn said in a press release. "The kind that happens inside us all as we grow and change and figure out who we are in this world."

Rebels By Accident features an Egyptian-American teen who is so disconnected from her culture that she secretly believes she comes from a backward country where people still travel by camel and women walk six steps behind the men, according to Dunn. After her first high school party ends in jail, she is sent to live with her grandmother in Cairo. While there, she witnesses a political revolution led by young men and women who use Facebook to organize protests to overthrow their corrupt government.

In Tahrir Square, surrounded by thousands of protestors, Mariam finally embraces what it means to be both Egyptian and American.

"Patricia Dunn draws us into the richly detailed and often humorous world of sixteen-year-old Arab-American Mariam’s quest for love and adventure on the revolutionary streets of an Egypt rising to take her place on the world stage during the Arab Spring," said Ayesha Mattu, editor and author of Love INshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. 

With the novel, Dunn is trying to provide teens with a positive Muslim role model. She said she couldn't find any books who provided that, and decided to write her own instead.