Hana Shafi Illustrates Herself as an Opossum among Not Opossums in 'Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty'
Hana Shafi and the book cover of Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty.
Hana Shafi has long featured her love of storytelling in her popular weekly affirmation series on Instagram, @frizzkidart. Add in her talent for getting herself into deeply embarrassing situations, and you get Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty: Affirmations for the Real World. We come to learn that snot, vomit, and diarrhea courtesy of her irritable bowel syndrome are liable to appear in any situation, and Shafi spares few details. Her unmistakable illustrations are, in a way, the main characters of her stories. They show so plainly the acceptance Shafi needed in those moments, and that which she’s willing to give herself now.
The first half feels like—as Shafi might say—she’s attending an icebreaker exercise on the first day of a new school year. Shafi describes her social life as a teen and young adult with chronic illness, but she also refuses to let her stories turn into “trauma porn” and is honest about omitting some elements of her stories for that reason.
She describes what it was like as an artsy “black sheep” kid in an immigrant family in Mississauga. Yet there’s warmth in Shafi’s tone when she describes how her Muslim identity and her Iranian heritage impact her, even if two sentences later she describes how much it sucks to tell her aunties that she’s freelancing. That ambivalence is never really resolved, but Shafi embraces it nonetheless.
The final two chapters build off the established goodwill and poop-talk-induced hilarity to weave in Shafi’s critical approach to whom deserves her time and attention, especially on social media, and cautions us not to allow ourselves to be hardened by the world. Shafi slams social media trends like “good vibes only” and the disintegrating social boundaries that make those trends possible. Her real, radical vulnerability and acceptance carries its power from the beginning of the book through to the finish.
Things go incredibly wrong in spaces where it’s much easier to believe everybody is polished and exuberant. Spending the evening in someone else’s bathroom courtesy of IBS is Shafi’s unfortunate party trick. At its worst, she admits her IBS made her feel like “less of a woman,” which speaks to the way gender constrains our sense of even the most basic bodily functions. Where she initially felt shame for not fitting in, she replaces it with gratitude for being exactly who she is.
She illustrates herself to be the “kind of dirty” opossum waddling around in a world of, well, not opossums. But Shafi tells us to stay the course and encourages us not to adjust ourselves in favour of a path (or a body) that the world might find more palatable. In this place, we can admit longing for the right clothes, hair, and witty caption, and can acknowledge how intense that pressure feels behind the lens. Existing, not always happily, outside of social media ideals is a form of resistance.
Shafi acknowledges the melodrama of a given moment that meant so much at the time, and instead of retrospectively saying it doesn’t matter now, she validates that experience for herself in front of the reader. The effect, as the book goes on, is luminous. You can’t help but cheer for her, and then realize you’re also cheering for yourself and your own journey towards self-love.
Thank you to Book*hug Press for providing Shrapnel with a media copy of Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty: Affirmations for the Real World.
Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty: Affirmations for the Real World is available now for purchase at Book*Hug Press’ website and in bookstores across Canada.
Price: $25.00 CAD
ISBN: 9781771666091
Pages: 180
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pub date: September 22, 2020
SHRAPNEL
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Book Review
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February 15,
2021
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4 MINUTE
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Claire Wilcox
is a technical writer and freelance writer from Oshawa, Ontario. She has an MA in English that was kind of worth it. Claire likes gender and pop culture more than most things.