Skip to content
TrackPodcasts
religionJul 21, 202223:38pending

Everything Sad is Untrue

Freely Given

About this episode

Gretchen and Katie talk about one of their summer book reads that made a huge impact on them. It's a secular published, young adult book, about a 12 year old refugee boy from Iran.

Told in the style of 1,001 Arabian Nights, it weaves together myths from his Persian culture, family legends of his great-great-grandparents, his own memories from Iran, living in a refugee camp in Italy, with his current life as a refugee living in Oklahoma. All of this is told with the humor of a 12 year old boy who loves a good poop story.

As this boy tries to make sense of his memories, you start to realize why they had to flee Iran: his mother became a Christian.

His family's story of faith gets woven into all the other memories and his thoughts on God stopped us in our tracks and took our breath away.

We strongly recommend this book for personal enjoyment or family discussion, and promise we didn't even give the best parts away.

Everything Sad is Untrue: a True Story, by Daniel Nayeri

Support the work of 1517

Get every episode summarized

Each time Freely Given publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.

Email me new episodes

Free for 3 shows. No card needed.

Hosts & guests

No transcript yet

This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.

Everything Sad is Untrue

Freely Given

0:00
23:38

More episodes

More from Freely Given

View all episodes →