Harris, who was born in a family with a history in St. Louis, attended Clayton High School as part of the class of 1964.
[1] She used law enforcement agencies, lawyers, judges, and video recordings of the perpetrator of the murder, Zein Isa, and his assistants as sources.
[1] She stated that the way Palestinian culture treasures the family as the ultimate authority and the attitudes towards women in Islam contributed to the murder.
[2] Kirkus Reviews concluded that "At its heart, and where it succeeds, the tragic story of a talented, vivacious young girl who desperately wanted to be a normal American teenager.
"[3] Daniel Pipes wrote in the Middle East Quarterly, a publication of the think tank Middle East Forum, that he encountered some difficulty in comprehension of the flow of events as "Harris spent more effort digging up information than she did writing the book" but that it is "a treasure trove of materials on two usually elusive subjects.