Fatima Farheen MirzaA Place for Us: A Novel

A PLACE FOR USBY: FATIMA FARHEEN MIRZAI don't know how attending the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop always guarantees its graduates to succeed in writing masterpieces. The most unforgettable literary fiction that can evoke myriads of emotion comes from writers' who have attended there. This impressive debut novel is no exception. This is a masterfully written new book about a first generation American-Indian family whose religion happens to be Muslim, which explores the love and complexities of every family dynamic that exists in all of humanity.The special bonds that exist between mothers' and sons' are brought to life with rich, vivid detail. The strong bonds that exist between siblings and how birth order effects greater expectations on each individual. Fathers and sons who find themselves in power struggles are expertly displayed. Each character in this novel is inherently good and pure at heart.The powerful and lasting effects of first love are flawlessly depicted. This is also a story of how well intentioned decisions made for what seems at the time, to be the best choices that we make for our children can sometimes backfire, and cause damage that cannot be undone. This novel also explores the vast differences of each individual child, who they inevitably become, and how they react while brought up in the same household with identical values. Each Adult Child takes a different path, and each one will conform, or not conform to their parents' expectations placed on them.The heartbreaking estrangement of a child has lifelong consequences. This is a very impressive debut novel, that will remain with me for a long time. The writing is beautiful, and the character development is superb. I wish more novels were written with such a keen eye to detail. I highly recommend this realistic novel to everyone. It shows us how much we share in common as humans no matter what cultural or religious faith we belong too.

All individuals are a unique sum of their life experiences, so much so that reading the same book at different stages in your life sometimes results in completely different reactions. The place where I am right this moment in my life made A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza resonate with me very deeply.The book starts off with the wedding of Hadia, the eldest daughter of Rafiq and Layla. We are immediately made aware of the tensions within the family, as Amar, the youngest and only son, returns after 3 years of leaving his family, to do his duty by his sister. In all this, there is also Huda, the typical middle child, overlooked by not only by the family, but also by the author herself.As we go back and forth in time, we are given a glimpse into the life of a Muslim couple who moves to the US from India, and try to bring up their three children according to Muslim and Indian traditions and culture. As is the case in most cases, the children all try to rebel in their own individual way.Being a parent bringing up my kids in a foreign land, while I understand the worries of the parents and their fear of the children losing their religion, I don't agree with trying to scare them into conforming. As this book shows, pulling the strings too tight causes them to break ultimately. When you have two children who are good at being obedient, it is natural to assume that the same mode of parenting will work on the third. Most of the time this is not so. We, as parents, know our children better than anyone else, and this is why sometimes we need to keep our egos aside and change our ways in order to avoid regrets later.The book jumps from one time to another without any warning, and as the pattern starts becoming evident, you realize the importance of all the different instances from the eyes of three people, Hadia, Amar and Layla. We see how small betrayals and forgotten reactions all lead to the eventual breaking up of this loving family. We also see how people form opinions according their own understanding of the situation, instead of trying to find the real facts.It is very sad that open communication is something that is lacking in most of our interactions, especially when it comes to families. In most families, the father is considered the one who lays down the laws, the disciplinarian, the person his own children are hesitant to approach. In such families, the mother assumes the role of the middleman, the one who is responsible for changing the father's mind. No one realizes that some things are lost in translation when you have indirect communication. This can sometimes cause rifts in families that become almost impossible to breach over time.As I read the book, there were a few instances where I felt that the writer did give in to stereotypes, and the constant strain of "The Ali Boy" was really getting on my nerves. So, I was completely ready to give this book 4 stars and move on. Then came the last part.What was missing in the whole book was there in the last part. As I read about a man trying to do his best by his family, I couldn't help but feel for that man. A person brought up to hide his feelings can never feel comfortable letting his emotions show. The way Mirza has written about Rafiq's thoughts is moving and heart wrenching. The struggles of a father who is unable to voice his love for his children, are brought to life in the last part of the book. I couldn't help but think of my own father, who while lying in bed, too sick to move, and in so much pain, was worried about how he had been unfair to his son! It all felt personal, and I want to admit that I cried while reading the last part of this beautiful book.This is a book that is meant for everyone. I even found myself wanting my teenage son to read it even if only to understand how parents love their children in their own different ways. A beautiful book that will stay with me for a long time.

I found the book to be slow moving for the first half but the second half is wonderful and worth the read and patience. Also, in the first half I did not seem to care very much for the characters but all that changes in the second half. So, keep reading!!

So the novel opens at a wedding. Rafiq and Layla are marrying their eldest daughter Hadia. A marriage of love and choice that they have come to accept. This day also marks the return of Amar, their youngest child and unique son, estranged for reasons unknown.This reunion is the catalyst for a journey down the memory lane, during which the family dynamics is slowly dissected. The novel, using a third person narrative, shifts between the perspectives of Hadia, Layla and Amar. Interestingly Huda, the middle child, is never given a perspective of her own; while the father remains largely silent, only seen through his children and wife’s eyes, up until the end, when we finally come to know him personally.We get to know the characters at different times, reliving events that marked them, moments they feel have defined them and shaped their fate. Some of these memories are tender, others filled with guilt and remorse. The questions that haunt them are palpable. When exactly did it become to late to repair what had been broken? Whose fault was it? Why did the cherished son never feel like he belonged? And there is no clear answer to that, just a series of unfortunate circumstances, misunderstandings, hesitations, doubts and mistakes.“Afsoos was the word in Urdu. There was no equivalent in English. It was a specific kind of regret — not wishing he had acted differently, but a helpless sadness at the situation as it was, a sense that it could not have been another way.”The temporal structure of the novel is intricate, never linear but seemingly following the flow of the characters’ memories, in a random, emotionally triggered way. I was impressed by how the author, whose debut it is, mastered this complex timeline. I did not feel lost at all. It was a unique experience, not really living an action with a debut, a middle and an end, but mainly living through the memories of the characters.“She always sensed conditions to their parents’ love and so she did nothing to threaten it.”I was accompanying this family through their reminiscences, jumping from memory to memory, snippets of their lives playing before my eyes. This made for a unique atmosphere, a novel where most of the action seems muffled, taking place through a haze, inside a cocoon. I guess it is how you feel when you’re roaming someone’s mind. The noisy outside world seems so far away as we are deeply buried in this family’s soul.“Any hurt he caused, any disappointment he brought — it only amplified her place in their parents’ life, and their love for her.”The writing here is simple. The author does not attempt to get flowery or weave complicated metaphors. I am usually a sucker for sophisticated prose. But here the clear description of the scenes, the simple, sometimes naive evocation of the characters’ emotional turmoil, seems perfectly appropriate, especially when describing childhood experiences. In fact, this bare, sometimes flat writing exhales a lyricism of its own.This book has been surrounded by a lot of hype. And I think it is well earned, especially when you think it is a debut novel. It is not a spectacular story, and the theme is familiar. But Mirza’s take on it is delicate and full of empathy. She tells a story she knows about, tells of characters she loves. And you feel it.Some readers may recognise themselves in the experience of an immigrant, Muslim family in a western country, in the tale of the pressure the religious beliefs of the parents can put on their children. But it is the universal themes of filial love, family unity, guilt, regret and the need for belonging that really touched me. Rafiq and Amar relationship’s is heartbreaking. The tension between love and anger, tolerance and strictness; the difficulty for the father to find a place in a fusional mother-son relationship, are well rendered.“There is no such thing as friends, only family, and only family will never desert you.”Conclusion : A graceful and warm family portrait that gently broke my heart. The quiet pacing, the absence of vigorous action, may not appeal to everyone. But if you like evocative, slow burn, character driven novels, then you may very well find yourself entranced.

TITLE: A Place For UsAUTHOR: Fatima Farheen MirzaPAGES: 400PUBLISHER: HogarthISBN: 978-1781090701THE BLURB:A Place for Us catches an Indian Muslim family on the eve of the eldest daughter’s wedding. As Hadia’s marriage -- one chosen of love, not tradition -- gathers the family back together, her parents Rafiq and Layla must come to terms with the choices that their two daughters, and their estranged son Amar, have made.Weaving through time, we see the detail of family life, all the crucial and tiny moments, through the eyes of each family member. And as Hadia, Huda and Amar attempt to carve out a life for themselves, they must reconcile their present culture with their parent’s faith, tread a path between the old world and the new and learn how the smallest decisions can lead to the deepest betrayals.IF I COULD REVIEW IT IN A SINGLE LINE:It took me an hour to get up from my seat, after I finished the book. Worth every second.THE REVIEW:As I sit by the laptop today to pen down the beautiful book that I just finished, for the first time in forever I find myself at loss of words. To think that I am capable of doing a justice to this book is beyond my ability.Fatima Farheen Mirza has indeed achieved in her first ever compilation what several can't in their years of experience. As I felt every word, every deed, every action I was taken hostage, indeed was Sarah Jessica Parker true in her words, I was taken captive by a book so powerful, so charismatic, so strong and yet so vulnerable. Even a thousand words in its accolade will not suffice. "You were my open vein. You were the would that, no matter how many years passed by, how many healing had been done, if prodded would open and bleed fresh again. "I sat there re reading the last part of the book for over a day, just because I wasn't sure I was ready for the book to be done. My heart wept for Huda, who was never heard by her Brother, for Hadia who tried so hard to be her father's perfect son, for Layla who acted for her son's best interests, for Amar who was never understood, was wronged but never intentionally, whose black heart was pure than so many others out there, for Amira, oh Amira, who would have been there even if that was the last thing she did.And above all for Rafiq, for Rafiq who was so right, all along, who was never heard, never seen, never wept, never keen, for Rafiq who broke a million pieces with every year Amar wasn't there, who wept a thousand oceans for every time he reflected on the last conversation.What I'd not give to change so many things.Amar your heart, with all its black specs, all its faults, is better than everything they could ask for. "My heart clenches at the thoughts of twelve brothers leading their youngest to a ditch, snatching from him his father's gift, that colorful coat."My eyes long for the phone made out of styrofoam cups, for the family picture over the mantle, for the picture of Amira smiling with that single strand over her forehead, for the word approximate written on the sole and above all for the smile, at the end of the gate, waiting for the sins to be forgiven.To compare or rate anything about the book would be to take a lot away from it. I have been in a reading slump for a couple months and there was no better book to take me out of it. This is for you out there, who believes there is a salvation, a family, a good, a God.Pick it up before everything else.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Fatima Farheen Mirza was born in California in 1991 and raised there. Her parents are of Indian descent; her mother grew up in Birmingham, her father in Hyderabad. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. A PLACE FOR US is her first novel.⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book about an ordinary family doing ordinary family things, and been so moved. This book speaks to the intricacies of the interactions between family members, paired with the intricacies of the thoughts and feelings of ourselves.You think the father is an unfeeling, angry man, but he’s not. I can see myself in him.You think the high achieving oldest daughter is fulfilled by all her accomplishments, but she’s not. I can see myself in her.You think the mother is just spoiling her youngest son, it she’s not. She recognizes that he is so much more sensitive and affected by life than her two older children. I can see myself in her. I can see parts of myself in each character, and fully understand how they feel. This is due to Fatima’s masterful character development, and her ability to share the story of their feelings: where they came from and how they’ve changed.This book is so deep and lovely, and at times made me cry from its ordinary interactions made extraordinary because of the sharing of the inner thoughts and dialogues of each character at different times in the book.Not to mention the storytelling about a Muslim family and their faith, something I know hardly anything about. How that seems an almost forgotten point about this book speaks to the highest level of storytelling about the universal human experience.

I took one star off for A Place for Us being boring, and another star for it being Infuriating. I give it the three remaining stars because it is well written and pleasant to read.A Place for Us is the story of an Indian-American family trying to hold onto their traditions while living in the United States. There are three children, the two oldest daughters are smart, hard working and successful in their lives. The youngest, a son, is deceitful, manipulative, unmotivated, and a substance abuser. He is also by far the mother's favourite.And that is why this novel is so infuriating. While the daughters are role models to the world, perfect, responsible, and good, it is still the no-good, selfish and entitled son around whom this novel revolves. And for me, that is a problem because I just have zero tolerance for a male-centred point of view. And even les so when it is largely the mother who is responsible for the situation.And, other than the endless injustice of this male-centric family, nothing much happens in the novel and the central issue is never resolved. This is why I found this novel boring.This is my opinion only. It is still worth a read if you don't mind the adoration of the worthless male.

I did really like this book. However after the first section where the story goes back in time to there backstory, did take me a while to really enjoy the story because I felt as though the story wasn’t getting anywhere. But then I carried on just to see if it would improve and it did. As soon as it improved I literally couldn’t put it down. I think some parts from the childhood cut of been cut down because i just found it boring tbh. Overall it was as good. It left me feeling sad and frustrated that one of the characters never reconciles with their family, but hopeful that one day they will. Would love to see a sequel to this as I felt the stories of each of the characters could further explored on their life choices.