A review by bookreviewswithkb
When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i loved this novel so much! give me fiction written by a poet everyyy tiiime 👏🏼

the writing is so compelling and beautiful. i was compulsively drawn into the narrative, wavering alongside the characters, feeling their emotions. Asghar explores what it means to try to find mothering when your own mother dies when you are a young child, how to find home in our sisters, the way grief settles into our bones, makes us begin to build a guard around our hearts preventing us from loving ourselves, from understanding how we should be loved. she grapples with gender identity, with the evolution of abuse and control, with belonging, with being left behind, with the seeking of what’s been taken from us