Veena’s review of A Sister To Honor by Lucy Ferriss
Contemporary Women’s Fiction published by Berkley 06 Jan 15
This story is definitely not for the faint of the heart. I actually had to put it down quite a few times before I could continue reading. Afia Satar is a child of the Pushtun, born and bred in a region where life moves at a completely different pace from what we are used to here in the US of A. Her small village is nestled in an area where the Taliban hold sway and men are afraid to cherish their wives and daughters and women are hidden behind the veil. Her actions, as she mingles with friends both male and female and lives what would be considered a fairly innocuous life as a student in an American university town, raise a storm that changes life for her and her family forever.
Afia has the unprecedented chance to leave her small village for an education in America and a chance to be a doctor and reach the millions of women in her homeland who have no access to medical aid, since most of the medical personnel are male. While she honors and values the traditions that she’s been brought up with and even misses her life back home with her mother and sisters, she makes the most of what her new life has to offer, including a forbidden romance with a young man.
When a Facebook picture of her college campus showing her and her friends surfaces with her hand caught in a male hand, it raises a storm of alarming proportions amongst her male relatives. I feel that given the narrow life her family lives, they actually handled the situation better than her well-educated Harvard-bound beloved brother Shahid. Shahid, who himself has no qualms about bending the traditions and rules that he’s been raised with, treats his sister’s transgression as a major crime that needs severe punishment.
At the heart of the storm is her step brother Khalid, who has always disliked the siblings, whom he feels have replaced his mother and himself in their father’s regard. As he whips up the intensity by manufacturing evidence as necessary to box Afia in, I am reminded about the story of the young woman who was stoned by her father and brothers for her crime of falling in love. In fact, the author definitely alludes to a very real possibility of similar punishment with a cameo of one of Afia’s friends who was terribly disfigured by her family for a similar crime.
When did love become a crime? Where is the honor in taking the life of an innocent in order to preserve face? Honor, as is evident in this story, means different things to different people and by no means is it a rigid line, because all of these people are able to bend and move the line when they feel the need is justified. The cultural gap is highlighted as we explore the different feelings and emotions exhibited by Shahid, his coach, Khalid, Afia’s parents, uncle, her college roommates, and Afia herself in dealing with this situation.
What really saddens me is Afia’s own feeling of guilt and her need to face her punishment and even death as necessary to condone for her innocent actions. At the end she’s left with nothing and all because she held hands with a young man and exchanged a few innocent kisses and a fumble in the dark.
When the dust settles, life will never be the same again. Yet Khalid’s arrest as a terrorist gives Afia’s stepfather back his status in the village and restores his love for his wife and remaining daughters, so long as they tread the straight and the narrow that has been laid out for them.
The story is very thought provoking and gives us what I feel is a very realistic look into some of the prevailing global issues with regard to the plight of women in other parts of the world. It takes a lot of courage to buck the system, and perhaps they will never get over the feeling of loss and guilt for having sought freedom, which, like in Afia’s case, in the end seems like a loss and not a win.
Grade: B
Summary:
Afia Satar is studious, modest, and devout. The young daughter of a landholding family in northern Pakistan, Afia has enrolled in an American college with the dream of returning to her country as a doctor. But when a photo surfaces online of Afia holding hands with an American boy, she is suddenly no longer safe—even from the family that cherishes her.
Rising sports star Shahid Satar has been entrusted by his family to watch over Afia in this strange New England landscape. He has sworn to protect his beloved sister from the dangerous customs of America, from its loose morals and easy virtue. Shahid was the one who convinced their parents to allow her to come to the United States. He never imagined he’d be ordered to cleanse the stain of her shame…
No excerpt available.
