Today I'm sharing the best book I read in October.
Of the 8 books I read this month, I didn't have any 5-star reads. I had one 4.5-star read, so that's my Best of the Bunch!
A Place for Us is a lovely family drama tinged with sadness. We know when the book opens that the bride's brother, Amar, has been estranged from the family, but not why. Mirza then attempts to answer that question by taking us back in time through the family's history, through the perspectives of Amar, his mother, and one of his sisters. Rather than giving us a straightforward chronology of events, though, we bounce back and forth to different points of time, and each incident becomes more nuanced as we look back to what came before and then see the same timeline from another character's point of view. The dynamics between the family members are so subtly real. What one character intends as extra care for Amar, who struggles with things his sisters never struggled with, appears to another character as unjust favoritism. What is intended to protect or correct or hold Amar to a high standard lands as a lack of love and understanding. The Muslim faith acts as a backdrop to the whole saga, affecting each character differently at different times, sometimes as an anchor, sometimes as a prison. While the book is maybe a little longer than it needs to be, I'm glad to have read it.
What is the best book you read this month? Let me know in comments, or write your own post and link up below!
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading:
Akata Witch,
Who Deserves Your Love,
Dracula, and
Code Name Kingfisher
Five years ago I was reading:
Muse of Nightmares,
Set Boundaries, Find Peace,
Solutions and Other Problems, and
Monsters and Mold
Ten years ago I was reading:
Brideshead Revisited,
Writing My Wrongs, and
Adoption Parenting
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