Jude is a 12-year-old Syrian girl. When the novel opens, she is living with her father (Baba), mother (Mama), and older brother (Issa) on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in a city known for tourism. Her best friend and cousin Fatima shares her interest in American movies, culture, and language. A third character, Sammy, serves as a foil; Sammy is wealthy and “posh,” with a more refined understanding of America than Fatima and Jude possess. Despite their closeness, Jude feels like Fatima is growing up more quickly than she is.

Leaving her country on a plane for the first time sets Jude’s symbolic Hero’s Journey in motion; she leaves behind her home, or “Ordinary World,” for the United States. While America is certainly safer politically, Jude realizes that not everyone offers kindness and acceptance to those they consider different. School lessons also do not come so easily, as she is still learning English. Mama’s struggles to accept life in America also exacerbate Jude’s own struggles to settle in.

Jude is curious, intelligent, and an astute observer of her surroundings, but her observations do not always make sense to her early in the novel. Though she can sense that, as Issa grows older and more involved in the revolutionary movement, greater and greater friction evolves between Baba and Issa, Jude sees this conflict only in terms of its effects on her family life.