Fatemeh Fakhraie has grown from a self-described "sullen little terror" into a gracious young adult. But she still doesn't like going home to see her parents.

"I hate going back to that little place I've outgrown," she writes in an essay about her childhood home in Ogden, Utah. "I hate seeing everything the same -- dusty and stagnant. It makes me antsy, itchy and irritated. I wish I could clean the house, throw out old history books we don't need and enroll my parents in pottery classes."

Fakhraie's piece, "Roots," appears in

The collection of writing by 40 American Muslim women under the age of 40 was published this month by

. Each entry breaks open the life of a young woman who is at once ordinary and exceptional, who lives her life of faith under a spotlight that is often harsh.

Fakhraie, 27, lives a life in Corvallis that is littered with broken stereotypes, but she chose an essay for "I Speak for Myself" that makes her sound like any young adult, religious or not, who dreads going home.

"Underneath it all, we Muslims aren't that different," she says. "Our experience is the American experience."

Fakhraie is not the Muslim woman many Americans expect to meet. She doesn't cover her hair, stand quietly on the margins, defer to men or blindly accept someone else's interpretation of the Quran.

Born to a Mormon mother and a Muslim father, Fakhraie embraced Islam as a young adult. She brings a feminist perspective to the Quran and Hadith, sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, and critiques traditional Muslim teachings on homosexuality and women's rights. She rejects the idea that her religion oppresses women but recognizes that people, cultures or governments sometimes do. Three years ago, she created a website, Muslimah Media Watch, to support her point of view.

In person, she is a passionate mix of deep convictions and shopping tips. She doesn't wear hijab, or traditional head-covering, because she believes the Quran enjoins modesty for both sexes but doesn't specifically decree that she must cover her hair.

"What is modesty?" she asks. "It's so subjective and cultural."

She does dress modestly and can't resist bragging about the silk blouse she bought on sale and wears with slacks and a short jacket. She has a journalism degree and a master's in fashion design ("I love clothes, but I don't like making clothes," she confesses) but works full-time at

. She does not attend a mosque, but considers herself part of a progressive, global Muslim community. Committed to her own faith, she is open to that of others.

"Two things are important to me," she says over a sushi supper in downtown Corvallis. "Justice and love, and both of them clicked for me in Islam."

Fakhraie grew up in a family where religion was respected but not forced on her or her younger brother, Anayat, 24. Her father, born in Iran, did not practice his faith. Her mother, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, studied religion with another woman but didn't attend services.

"I was raised as a white girl with a funny last name and a foreign dad," she says. As an adolescent, she was "the black cloud" over her parents' house. "I was sullen. I hated everything." Today she says she and her family are close, but her brother, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, remembers her black cloud days.

"At Christmas, we'd be opening presents and she'd be sulking in the corner," he says. "She didn't want anyone to take pictures. 'Do we have to do this?' she'd complain. She embodied the quintessential teenager angst."

"I was a 'why' person," she says. "I always wanted to know why." Why, for example, was her father so strict with her when it came to boys? An avid reader, she began reading about Persian culture, which led her to the subject of Islam. She kept on reading. When she got to college, she read

It was a breakthrough moment for her.

"I could be a feminist and a Muslim," she says. "I was a feminist before I knew what a feminist was." Fakhraie's mother was the family breadwinner and her dad was "Mr. Mom." She remembers being upset that her mom came home from work and picked up household chores.

"It was like a double shift," Fakhraie says. "Fairness has always been an integral issue with me."

It's also why she challenges the traditional Muslim idea that homosexuality is sinful. "I believe that sexuality is an innate part of who we are," she says. "I believe that God does not make mistakes. ... I can't see being gay as a sin or deviancy or something God hates."

A feminist perspective is not new to Islam, though many still consider it radical. Lamia N. Karim, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon, says Muslim women "have been resisting, subverting and challenging patriarchal interpretations of religious texts for a very long time."

What Fakhraie is doing with her website is "democratization of voices," Karim says.

Fakhraie wrote her first book in first grade.

"I wrote it and illustrated it and stapled it together," she says. "When Mrs. Passey put it on a bookshelf with other books, I knew what I wanted to do."

Fakhraie writes about Islam, feminism, politics and race for print and online journals, including Racialicious and AltMuslimah. Her master's thesis, "Effects of Socioeconomic Status on Hijab Styles in Urban Iranian Women," has been turned into a textbook. Muslimah Media Watch is growing. With 17 contributors from several countries, recent posts have criticized news stories on one of Osama bin Laden's wives and a daughter, and a Ms. Magazine piece on "the breast cancer stigma" in Saudi Arabia. Fakhraie edits submissions and monitors comments.

"This is not a free speech zone," she says of the website. She works hard to create a safe, respectful place where Muslim women, "especially marginalized ones," can express their views.

She created the website so Muslim women from different countries, sects and races could find and critique misogyny, sexism, patriarchy, Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia. Already, Muslimah Media Watch is turning up on sites aimed at working journalists and others who need to learn more about Islam before they write about it.

"Muslim women are increasingly finding their voices," says Lawrence Pintak, founding dean of The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University and author of several books on journalism in the Middle East. He's heard Muslim women complain that they are sought after for interviews and articles if they will talk or write about being oppressed by Islam. But if they want to write as independent women journalists, their point of view is less welcome. The power of social networking means a site like Muslimah Media Watch gives them an opportunity to be heard, he says.

From her tiny apartment in Corvallis, Fakhraie travels and talks about feminism, Islam and her website. She was part of the 2009-2010 American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute, and now she's helping publicize "I Speak for Myself." The sullen little terror is gone, and the gracious young adult is trying to figure out what she'll tackle next.

"I'm poised to do something big," she says. "Muslim women are the final frontier."