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A Place For Us by Fatima Farheer Mirza
382 pages
What’s it about?
This book opens at a family wedding in California. Hadia is getting married in a traditional Indian- Muslim ceremony. Hadia’s mother, father, younger sister-Huda, and younger brother-Amar are all in attendance. As the story opens you realize that for an unknown reason Amar is estranged from the family. The rest of the novel goes back and forth in time and viewpoints to explain Amar’s place in the family.
What did it make me think about?
This book captures the complexity of family relationships. It made me think of how we all see shared experiences so very differently. This story emphasizes how our age, our generation, and our life experiences influence those viewpoints. What grandparent can't understand this quote- “ A young child was asleep on her father’s shoulder, her little feet bare, her mother following with her shoes hooked on curled fingers. They had their whole lives ahead of them: they moved through the world where anything was possible and did not even know to be grateful for it. "
Should I read it?
So this book has gotten a lot of hype because it is the first book from Sarah Jessica Parker’s line for Hogarth. Such a shame as all the hype should be about this amazing new writer. I thought this book was a treasure. I wanted to slow down and just savor the last fifty pages. One of my favorite books I have read in years! Don’t miss the one.
Quote-couldn't choose just one!
“She knows her father. His pride, his values, his adherence to religious rules. They are more important than love. More important than loyalty to one’s child. She always sensed conditions to their parents’ love so she did nothing to threaten it. Amar senses the same and only thought to test its limits. See how far he could push them before they left him.”
“We pray together and when it is time for us to ask our hearts desire, my first wish is that he remain steadfast in faith, and then, if he does not, that he never believe that God is a being with a heart like a human’s, capable of being small and vindictive.”
If you liked this try-
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Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
A Place For Us by Fatima Farheer Mirza
382 pages
What’s it about?
This book opens at a family wedding in California. Hadia is getting married in a traditional Indian- Muslim ceremony. Hadia’s mother, father, younger sister-Huda, and younger brother-Amar are all in attendance. As the story opens you realize that for an unknown reason Amar is estranged from the family. The rest of the novel goes back and forth in time and viewpoints to explain Amar’s place in the family.
What did it make me think about?
This book captures the complexity of family relationships. It made me think of how we all see shared experiences so very differently. This story emphasizes how our age, our generation, and our life experiences influence those viewpoints. What grandparent can't understand this quote- “ A young child was asleep on her father’s shoulder, her little feet bare, her mother following with her shoes hooked on curled fingers. They had their whole lives ahead of them: they moved through the world where anything was possible and did not even know to be grateful for it. "
Should I read it?
So this book has gotten a lot of hype because it is the first book from Sarah Jessica Parker’s line for Hogarth. Such a shame as all the hype should be about this amazing new writer. I thought this book was a treasure. I wanted to slow down and just savor the last fifty pages. One of my favorite books I have read in years! Don’t miss the one.
Quote-couldn't choose just one!
“She knows her father. His pride, his values, his adherence to religious rules. They are more important than love. More important than loyalty to one’s child. She always sensed conditions to their parents’ love so she did nothing to threaten it. Amar senses the same and only thought to test its limits. See how far he could push them before they left him.”
“We pray together and when it is time for us to ask our hearts desire, my first wish is that he remain steadfast in faith, and then, if he does not, that he never believe that God is a being with a heart like a human’s, capable of being small and vindictive.”
If you liked this try-
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
First 5⭐️ read of 2019! I finished A Place For Us last weekend, but I’ve been struggling to get my thoughts together to write a (semi)coherent review. I bought this book after seeing the author speak at the Boston Book Festival back in October and I didn’t really know what to expect going in. And even still, this book exceeded any possible expectations I might have had. Everything about this book was just so well done, so beautifully crafted and thought-provoking
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A Place For Us tells the story of an Indian-American Muslim family that is reuniting for the first time when the son, Amar, returns home for his sister’s wedding after three years away. Focusing on themes of family, religion, identity, and belonging, the story goes back and forth between various points in time to examine how different events shaped their family. What I loved most about this book, other than the beautiful writing style, was the way the book alternates between each of the different family members POVs at various points in their lives. Because of this, each and every character was so complex and well-developed. The different stories were so intricately woven together and the way the author showed the same event from different perspectives made it nearly impossible to root for or point fingers at any one character. The book really made me think about the way different moments, even seemingly insignificant ones, can shape a person’s life. And the ending, my god 😭 You guys warned me it would be sad, but I was not prepared lol. It was a slower read, but one that came together so beautifully in the end — Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
.
.
A Place For Us tells the story of an Indian-American Muslim family that is reuniting for the first time when the son, Amar, returns home for his sister’s wedding after three years away. Focusing on themes of family, religion, identity, and belonging, the story goes back and forth between various points in time to examine how different events shaped their family. What I loved most about this book, other than the beautiful writing style, was the way the book alternates between each of the different family members POVs at various points in their lives. Because of this, each and every character was so complex and well-developed. The different stories were so intricately woven together and the way the author showed the same event from different perspectives made it nearly impossible to root for or point fingers at any one character. The book really made me think about the way different moments, even seemingly insignificant ones, can shape a person’s life. And the ending, my god 😭 You guys warned me it would be sad, but I was not prepared lol. It was a slower read, but one that came together so beautifully in the end — Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
This is a beautiful, sensitive insight into Indian-Muslim culture as it co-exists alongside life in the United States. The story is told from multiple perspectives and jumps around in time a fair bit. This is not my favourite format, but I recognise the structural advantages to revealing different parts of the plot at certain times. I was interested to read this because Fatima Farheen Mitza is married to Riz Ahmed who I recently heard interviewed by Louis Theroux on his podcast "Grounded" and then enjoyed watching him in the 2019 movie "Sound of Metal". His British-Pakistani background, political views and cultural observations made me curious to learn more. A Place for Us certainly offers this opportunity. Fatima makes regular use of Urdu and Islamic words as she tells her story, and italicizes them which I thought worked well. As a non-Muslim reader, I would have appreciated a glossary to help me with these, but Googling them was fine too and many of them could be guessed/understood through context. Just a warning to other readers: as a parent I found the second half of this novel very thought-provoking, emotional and intense.
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