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Overview
Overview
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NEW YORK'S "ONE BOOK, ONE NEW YORK" PICK Named One of the Best Books of 2018 by: Washington Post - NPR - People - Refinery29 - Parade - Buzzfeed
"Mirza writes with a mercy that encompasses all things." -- RON CHARLES, Washington Post "A Place for Us is a book for our times." -- CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR The first novel from Sarah Jessica Parker's new imprint, SJP for Hogarth, A Place for Us is a deeply moving and resonant story of love, identity, and belonging
"Mirza writes with a mercy that encompasses all things." -- RON CHARLES, Washington Post "A Place for Us is a book for our times." -- CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR The first novel from Sarah Jessica Parker's new imprint, SJP for Hogarth, A Place for Us is a deeply moving and resonant story of love, identity, and belonging
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?
A Place for Us takes us back to the beginning of this family's life: from the bonds that bring them together, to the differences that pull them apart. All the joy and struggle of family life is here, from Rafiq and Layla's own arrival in America from India, to the years in which their children--each in their own way--tread between two cultures, seeking to find their place in the world, as well as a path home. A Place for Us is a book for our times: an astonishingly tender-hearted novel of identity and belonging, and a resonant portrait of what it means to be an American family today. It announces Fatima Farheen Mirza as a major new literary talent.- Format: Hardcover
- Author: Mirza, Fatima Farheen
- ISBN: 9781524763558
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 9.30 x 1.40
- Number Of Pages: 400
- Publication Year: 2018
Customer Reviews
Rating Snapshot
5 ★
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An engaging, heartbreaking story about family, love and identity.
Julie S. - 6 years 2 months agoA moving portrait of an Indian-American Muslim family, A Place for Us dives straight into the heart of what it means to be a family, what it means to be an individual and what it means to belong. As all the members of one family gather to celebrate the eldest daughters wedding, each family member looks back at crucial moments in their past as the three children have searched for the place they belong in the world, in their culture, in their faith and in their family. Mirza goes back and forth in time and from one perspective to another, letting the reader see the thoughts and feelings behind every circumstance and every consequence, showing how without understanding, even acts of love can turn into acts of betrayal.
HPB Staff Review -
A gripping, heartwarming story of love, growth and familial relations
Natalie W. - 6 years 4 months agoIn Fatima Farheen Mirza's first novel, she captivates readers with her eloquence. I was hooked on her story from the beginning as each character's journey and fate was full of depth and mystery. Mirza brings a thoughtful new voice to the first-generation story. I've recommended this book to many of my high school students looking for a love story that is extraordinarily real. #SummerReading
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This story will stay with you
Stacey M. - 6 years 5 months agoWithin the first few chapters of the book, Hadia, Amar, and their friends and family felt so real to me. Like I knew them and had spent time in their world. This is such a wonderful and real story about family understandings and misunderstandings and how the immigrant experience sometimes affects—and sometimes doesn't affect—those understandings and misunderstandings. Fatima Farzeen Mirza's pacing is perfect and her prose lovely. I'd heard much about this book before reading it and it definitely lived up to the hype for me.
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Tender story of sibling love and growing up, set in a Muslim community of California
Anthony M. - 6 years 6 months agoThe writing in A Place For Us is tender and stirring, creating a space of love within the delicately weighted relationships and narrative. Mirza’s language is exquisite, dripping off the page, slowly enjoyed and strikingly clear. One of my favorite books, the story of an Indian-American, Muslim, immigrant family of three young children grows through their teenage years into adulthood as an intricate balance of dreams, traditions, roles, and faith. The timeline jumps among a number of different events, back and forth between the past and future, making the characters and their relationships seem timeless, existing in all ages, somehow affected by things that haven’t happened yet. This constant tension brings drama to family life that is familiar and genuine. Seemingly small events have profound consequences. This is perhaps the most vivid and accurate description of sibling love and relationships that I have ever read. Tension, jealousy, and betrayal mix with responsibility, kindness, and compassion as the oldest girl, Hadia, hopes to overcome traditional female roles among her community, jealous of her brother Amar for being born male. Yet Amar struggles under the weight of expectation that Hadia has set with high grades and achievements, searching for his own identity and falling into prohibited love with Amira, a local girl in his community. Religion coupled with an orthodox community, wind through the narrative, a constant backdrop to every decision made, some forced, others faithful, and still others rebellious. Mirza provides the complexity, turmoil, and devotion of family life with a stunning and powerfully written tale of siblings and parents working in the context of their tradition, the American dream, and personal identity as they try to build fulfilling lives.