Written in the Stars: A Novel

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I know how I feel and I'm five hundred percent certain that on a scale of one to ten, I want to be with you, exactly as you are, infinity.”

The plot is swift and fast-paced. The author doesn't waste any time by lingering on any unwanted details and delivers her story in a good and clear language. As a desi, I think it’s so important for us to see representation, and as a desi from an upper middle class family, I can tell it’s important to talk about the kind of horrors that some arranged marriages can cause in small villages in Pakistan. But as a reader of international fiction, I worry about what the non-Pakistani reader takes away about our country from this novel: do they believe all Pakistanis are intolerant of love marriages and willing to drug girls into saying yes? And in continuing this conversation, isn’t it upon the reader to not expect a book to represent everything about a country, in all of its complexities and contradictions? Is the author to blame if our country is not publishing enough fiction to represent all the different ways of living in Pakistan there are? For generations my family lived in this village. People looked up to us. They came to us to resolve their disputes. And now? The respect we built up over the generations, you are trying to ruin all of it!”

This story is a very important one, and it's important to anyone who would read it. This is a story about a Pakistani-American girl who is physically (and occasionally violently) forced into an arraigned marriage completely against her will and the horrible things that follow. This is an important story for Pakistani-American (or just Pakistani) girls to read for many reasons. One, there really just aren't that many YA novels with Pakistani girl MCs. Two, this is a situation that some of them can probably relate to and stories like that are so important , especially for young people. For me, this story was important because it taught me about another culture I knew very little about and it opened up my eyes to a situation and various events that I will never, ever experience in my life. Stories that teach us things about the world and different ways of life other people have are vital because it makes us more educated and more empathic to their lifestyles and life experiences as well as more tolerant to things we are less familiar with. Basically, this is why we need more diverse books, especially in the Young Adult category. Stories like these that teach us the kinds of things I just mentioned are really important for young people because the way that young people think and act up to age, like, 18-21 is how they will be for the rest of their lives. Being more open to others' situations are so important . Though the book is very well written as well as holds importance in terms of what author has tried to portray through her story, but somewhere down the line I also feel showing what's positive in a particular culture is more important for reader's who aren't much clear about the particular culture or religion. Naila, our main character, studies in American school and lives with her orthodox immigrant parents in Florida. She is forbidden to talk to any boys, but Saif has her heart and soon things start to change for her. The reason why I didn’t rate this book higher was because towards the end one of the characters was really annoying and there were some things that were not as believable. Overall, I think this is a charming story, I am glad I read it with my book club and I recommend it! Content Warnings The only true part I actively disliked though was Darcy’s brother. His involvement and meddling is supposedly affecting Darcy’s and Elle’s relationship positively; it’s him, after all, who sets them up and his meddling “helps” them along the way. But I absolutely hated him and his blatant disregard of boundaries that was downplayed at every turn. Every scene with him in it was a struggle to get through for me because he irritated me so much.

First off, this was a very interesting story about a subject matter I had never read about before. It introduces the reader to the culture slowly, and I found a lot about it very fascinating. With the craziness of this year, I have found myself seeking out cute and charming stories more than usual. This book provided a pleasant, escape from reality type of reading experience. The two female characters had good chemistry and it was fun rooting for them to find happiness. I hate keeping secrets from her. But how can I explain that I see the world a little differently and my way of looking at the world isn’t bad, not if it means their daughter has found someone she loves, someone who makes her completely and unbelievably happy? Firstly, weak emotions. In an emotional novel such as this, I expected to cry a river, as was the case in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Except for one instance, I was hardly touched and I hardly shed a tear. So I think, the emotions were a bit weak for such a strong story. Even though this is a love story yet it is more theme-driven. The area it focuses is forced marriages. Unfortunately, the plague of such marriages against will is deeply enrooted in many parts of the world and knows no boundaries of country, race or religion. Naila is just one victim of this narrow-mindset and her story is significant because she is the representative of such girls going through such unfairness.But if you expect to read one of these books where a woman is married to a stranger, constantly abused by her husband and then forced to flee across several countries to get away from an ill-tempered bastard – well, this is not that book. The mistreatments are harsh but are mostly inflicted by her own extended family (further, the graphics in this book are very subtle, since this is a YA book, after all). It’s also sad to think that there are people out there whose most personal decision in life (to choose the person they will love) is dictated by culture, by parents who blindly uphold their culture to the point of cruelty and disregard of their children’s feelings. For me, that’s when it becomes wrong.