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A review by drridareads
A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
5.0
You guys I'm so sad this book didn't make it to the final round for best fiction or best debut :(
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A Place For Us is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. It's one of those rare books that consume your soul and make you cry your heart out.
the miracle of the human heart is that it expands in its capacity to accept, to love.
The book starts of with a wedding. Hadia is getting married to someone she chose for herself rather than marrying the person her parents arranged for her. There's increased tension as Hadia has invited her younger brother Amar to the wedding; nobody has seen or heard from him in three years.
The book is then told through shifting timelines and perspectives, we get to see the little and big things that sets this family apart. The way this was told and how it's an all consuming emotionally rich family drama reminded me of This Is Us and honestly I think it would make a beautiful tv show.
Being a Muslim myself, I was really happy with the representation shown in this book. In fact because this book had a different group of Muslims than what I belong too, I learned so much about Shia Community practices throughout it.
The depth of the characters was such a delightful surprise.
We have Rafiq ; a conservative father, implementing what he believes to be is right, what he is taught, yet when the time comes he is willing to look beyond what he knows, willing to broaden his mind to accept his son. In the book he says:
“There is no such thing as friends, only family, and only family will never desert you.”
This honestly reminds me so much of my dad, I don't know is this a brown thing? And everytime he says this it shocks me so much, because I've seen him in his difficult times and his friends are the first and mostly the only people to help him. But I realise it's mostly a thing he says so me and my sister so we appreciate each other more and fight less.
Then there's the mom Layla ; honestly there were parts in this book I hated her; but I can understand. You can see that she tries her best to be a mother; she does what she knows..
What more could she say? She felt a consistent tug to give to him, to give to all of them, sliced apples and time in the sun, a spot in the shade, but something more too, an instruction on how to be in the world.
Basically, through both the parents shown we can really appreciate how much one's upbringing affects the way they are as parents, they obviously try their best but sometimes some ideas programmed into your mind and it takes a conscious effort to think beyond them.
Hadia ; through whose wedding everybody gets together. She is probably the most relatable character, how she loves her family yet wants to be free. We get to see the struggles of falling in love while being Muslim.
We then have Amar who was my favourite. This broken complex character had so much to him. We get to see him fall in love, have his heart broken, go through addiction, feel left out. We see him make mistakes. But at the end of the day, we just see him as human.. We see him try and fail to adjust to societal and cultural restraints.
He detests, most of all, the importance placed on maintaining a sense of decorum that feels stifling, false
I honestly loved the chemistry between him and Amira
Lastly there is Huda , if I were to complain about something in this book, it would be the lack of focus and development of this character. We didn't get to see much of her, not once was her perspective included..and so I'm not sure how I feel about her.
I would recommend this to everyone, especially those looking forward to get broken by books, or those interesting in learning about the Muslim experience.
Late review, cause I just didn't know how to do this beautiful book justice.
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Beautiful, a brown muslim experience that was relatable..
Proper review to come soon..
-------------------------------------------------
A Place For Us is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. It's one of those rare books that consume your soul and make you cry your heart out.
the miracle of the human heart is that it expands in its capacity to accept, to love.
The book starts of with a wedding. Hadia is getting married to someone she chose for herself rather than marrying the person her parents arranged for her. There's increased tension as Hadia has invited her younger brother Amar to the wedding; nobody has seen or heard from him in three years.
The book is then told through shifting timelines and perspectives, we get to see the little and big things that sets this family apart. The way this was told and how it's an all consuming emotionally rich family drama reminded me of This Is Us and honestly I think it would make a beautiful tv show.
Being a Muslim myself, I was really happy with the representation shown in this book. In fact because this book had a different group of Muslims than what I belong too, I learned so much about Shia Community practices throughout it.
The depth of the characters was such a delightful surprise.
We have Rafiq ; a conservative father, implementing what he believes to be is right, what he is taught, yet when the time comes he is willing to look beyond what he knows, willing to broaden his mind to accept his son. In the book he says:
“There is no such thing as friends, only family, and only family will never desert you.”
This honestly reminds me so much of my dad, I don't know is this a brown thing? And everytime he says this it shocks me so much, because I've seen him in his difficult times and his friends are the first and mostly the only people to help him. But I realise it's mostly a thing he says so me and my sister so we appreciate each other more and fight less.
Then there's the mom Layla ; honestly there were parts in this book I hated her; but I can understand. You can see that she tries her best to be a mother; she does what she knows..
What more could she say? She felt a consistent tug to give to him, to give to all of them, sliced apples and time in the sun, a spot in the shade, but something more too, an instruction on how to be in the world.
Basically, through both the parents shown we can really appreciate how much one's upbringing affects the way they are as parents, they obviously try their best but sometimes some ideas programmed into your mind and it takes a conscious effort to think beyond them.
Spoiler
I do hate it when she tries to degrade and blame Amira for everything, and there is no justification of that, but specially if you are brown you can understand how this shitty concept of it being the girl's fault and her respect to be lost is ingrained into mindsHadia ; through whose wedding everybody gets together. She is probably the most relatable character, how she loves her family yet wants to be free. We get to see the struggles of falling in love while being Muslim.
We then have Amar who was my favourite. This broken complex character had so much to him. We get to see him fall in love, have his heart broken, go through addiction, feel left out. We see him make mistakes. But at the end of the day, we just see him as human.. We see him try and fail to adjust to societal and cultural restraints.
He detests, most of all, the importance placed on maintaining a sense of decorum that feels stifling, false
I honestly loved the chemistry between him and Amira
Spoiler
and it broke my heartLastly there is Huda , if I were to complain about something in this book, it would be the lack of focus and development of this character. We didn't get to see much of her, not once was her perspective included..and so I'm not sure how I feel about her.
I would recommend this to everyone, especially those looking forward to get broken by books, or those interesting in learning about the Muslim experience.
Late review, cause I just didn't know how to do this beautiful book justice.
------------------------------------------------
Beautiful, a brown muslim experience that was relatable..
Proper review to come soon..