Title: A Place for Us

Author: Fatima Farheen Mirza

Publisher: SJP for Hogarth 2018

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 385

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Popsugar - Includes a wedding; Women Authors; Literary Escapes - California

As an Indian wedding gathers a family back together, parents Rafiq and Layla must reckon with the choices their children have made. There is Hadia: their headstrong, eldest daughter, whose marriage is a match of love and not tradition. Huda, the middle child, determined to follow in her sister’s footsteps. And lastly, their estranged son, Amar, who returns to the family fold for the first time in three years to take his place as brother of the bride. What secrets and betrayals have caused this close-knit family to fracture? Can Amar find his way back to the people who know and love him best? 

Our book club selection for March and I’m pretty disappointed in this one. It was billed as a moving story of a family growing, changing, and healing. I just couldn’t get behind it. The story revolved around the father and son and I just couldn’t seem to care about either one. The mother and sisters seemed to exist only to support the two males in the house. I get that many of the familial relationships were influenced by the family’s religion, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like those relationships. Beyond my issues with the characters, I was deeply annoyed by the time jumping and POV switching. Without warning, the author constantly shifted the timeline or the POV. I spent way too much time figuring out who was talking, but more importantly, when they were talking. And then having the story told multiple times throughout the novel adding bits and pieces along the way was just too repetitive for me. I was very bored throughout most of this book.

Next up on the TBR pile: