IT WON'T ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS

In this intimate graphic memoir, Gharib recounts growing up with her father's new Egyptian family, forging unexpected bonds and navigating adolescence in an unfamiliar country.

It's hard enough to figure out boys, beauty, and being cool when you're young, but even harder when you're in a country where you don't understand the language, culture, or religion. Nine-year-old Malaka Gharib arrives in Egypt for her annual summer vacation abroad and assumes it'll be just like every other vacation she's spent at her dad's place in Cairo. But her father shares news that changes everything: he has remarried. Over the next fifteen years, as she visits her father's growing family summer after summer, Malaka must reevaluate her place in his life. All that on top of maintaining her coolness!

Malaka doesn't feel like she fits in when she visits her dad--she sticks out in Egypt and doesn't look anything like her fair-haired half siblings. She quickly learns not to speak English at the souk and spends stretches of time helping her stepmother Hala with the laundry, but she also smokes hookah for the first time, discovers that you can order sushi in Cairo, and befriends her stepmother, Hala, a young woman who isn't so different from Malaka herself.

IT WON'T ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS is a touching time capsule of Gharib's childhood memories - each summer a fleeting moment in time - and her reflections on identity, relationships, values, family, and what happens when it all collides.

Since the release of her first book, I WAS THEIR AMERICAN DREAM (Clarkson Potter, 2019)--deemed "charming" by Publishers Weekly, "forthright and funny" by Booklist, and "intimately specific and deeply universal" by bestselling author Jonny Sun--Malaka Gharib has made a name for herself in the world of comics as a contributor to The New Yorker, The NIB and NPR ; by hosting workshops, talks, and panels for museums, schools, The Believer, and Comic Con; and building a robust social platform (combined Twitter/IG following of 30k).
Malaka Gharib is a writer, journalist, and cartoonist. She is the author of I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir, winner of an Arab American Book Award and named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and the New York Public Library. By day, she works on NPR's science desk, covering the topic of global health and development. Her comics, zines, and writing have been published in NPR, Catapult, The Seventh Wave Magazine, The Nib, The Believer, and The New Yorker. She lives in Nashville with her husband, Darren, and her dog, Sheeboo.