In this debut collection of stories, the author, who was born and raised near Boston, draws on the extensive time she’s spent in Gaza and Cairo, including the period of the First Intifada (1987–1993). In these pages, she marries these experiences with her lifelong desire to write fiction to provide “a glimpse of what it is like to be growing up in the Arab world where similarities and differences with those living elsewhere become apparent, as history, the land itself, customs, religious practices, the law, family life, educational systems, societal demands and expectations impact the characters.” These characters include, in “A Feel-Good Story,” Leena Elias Haddad, a recent high school graduate doing her gap year in Cairo who’s instructed by her parents to volunteer to visit lonely patients at the local hospital, where she meets an imperious older woman named Madam Amira. There’s also high school student Heba in “Running Like the Wind.” She’s already dealing with the knee-jerk bigoted reactions (largely provoked by her decision to wear her hijab in public) of her American peers and teammates; now she must also factor in the roaming neighborhood ICE gangs that have “people on edge.” These 18 stories are accompanied by a glossary of Middle Eastern terms. Brauer’s decision to anchor most of these stories in the everyday family lives of young people pays off, as the approach serves to underscore the shared humanity of all the characters. The author has a knack for taking mundane scenarios (like the household issue of a missing electric razor in “A Close Shave”) and spinning them into involving narratives. Her main characters are instantly likable, such as young Bashir in “Against the Tide,” who dares to dream big dreams in Helwan, an industrialized suburb of Cairo. The stakes tend to be low, but readers who prioritize empathy over outsized cultural revelations will enjoy these glimpses into lives that aren’t all that different from those of their Western counterparts.