Stevie‘s review of A Sister To Honor by Lucy Ferriss
Contemporary Women’s Fiction published by Berkley 06 Jan 15
It can be rather tricky to read a culture-clash novel when one is from neither culture. No matter how familiar we in the UK are with the norms of US college life, there are always aspects that don’t get shown on TV and therefore trip us up when reading stories where we’re expected to be fully familiar with all the little details of such settings. Likewise, having worked with women from Pakistani Muslim backgrounds and having been exposed to other aspects of their culture through UK media, there will always be norms that I’ve encountered before that many US readers might not have thought about. Nonetheless, I was intrigued by this book’s blurb, and thought I’d give it a go.
Afia has followed her brother Shahid to the US with the intention of studying medicine in order to provide a better level of care to the women living around her home in Pakistan. The siblings come from a well-off background, with servants – as well as a large extended family – and have seen a number of changes in their village due to the power struggles between those who would impose more severe restrictions on women and girls and those who embrace a more Westernised attitude to gender roles and what constitutes acceptable female behaviour.
Although Afia has been allowed to leave her home, her family expects her to behave far more chastely than her brother – who unknown to most of them has already been involved with American girls on his campus. Afia befriends her brother’s former roommate, Gus, and the two become close, although Afia is very careful not to let any of her family find out abut their relationship. Then a photograph appears on the website of Afia’s all-female college, in which Afiia can be seen holding the hand of an obviously male student.
Having been alerted to the picture, Afia’s family try to limit the damage to her and their reputation by arranging a marriage for her with an eligible young man within their extended family. However, another photograph surfaces, which is even more damaging to Afia’s reputation – and Afia’s jihadi half-brother begins making threats against both her and Gus, as well as encouraging Shahid to take action against them himself.
Shahid is a promising squash player, as is Gus, and much of the action in this novel centres around how far their coach is prepared to go to protect the team’s star players and their chances in upcoming matches, while also shielding Afia, whom she has grown close to, from whoever is out to cause trouble for her.
I find it hard to suspend my disbelief that no one on Afia’s campus had any prior experience or knowledge of the situation she finds herself in, and that no other female Muslim students were able to help or advise her – and I also got frustrated that the characters took as long as they did to work out what was going on and who was working against them at various points in the story. However, this book does have a couple of excellent female characters in the form of Afia and the squash team’s coach, as well as some intriguing background characters that I would have liked to know more about.
Overall, a well-researched and adequately plotted book that is just let down for me by too wide a gap between my knowledge and experiences and those of the central US-based characters. I also had a vague niggle over the way Afia’s speech patterns are presented, as there are times when her word choices feel neither authentic nor consistent within the story itself.
Grade: C
Read Veena’s review here.
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.
