Jameela Green Ruins Everything

“I think we got off on the wrong foot, with you telling me I had to be killed and then me getting all upset about it. Let’s start again. My name is Jameela, and I’m a writer. What do you do, besides . . . assassinations? Is that a hobby or more of a full-time thing?”

Jameela Green Ruins Everything follows Jameela Green, whose only wish is to see her memoir on the New York Times bestseller list. When that doesn’t work out, she decides that her best next step is to make a deal with God, so she heads over to her local mosque. There, the idealistic new imam, Ibrahim Sultan, is appalled by Jameela’s shallowness but agrees to assist her on one condition—that she performs a good deed.

Jameela reluctantly accepts his terms, kicking off a series of unfortunate events. The homeless man they try to help gets recruited by a terrorist group, causing federal authorities to become suspicious of Ibrahim. When the imam mysteriously disappears, Jameela is certain that the CIA has captured her new friend for interrogation and possibly torture.

Despite having no talent for this sort of thing, Jameela decides to set off on a one-woman operation to rescue him. Her quest soon lands her at the centre of an international plan targeting the leader of the terrorist organisation—a scheme that puts Jameela and countless others, including her hapless husband and clever but disapproving daughter, at risk.

A no-holds-barred satire about the international cost of the American Dream, Jameela Green Ruins Everything is a compulsively readable, darkly comedic, yet unexpectedly touching story of one woman’s search for meaning and connection.