Book: The Family Tree
Author: Sairish Hussain
Pages: 528
Publisher: Harper Collins
Read On: Kindle
How Long it Took Me To Read: A Week (with several breaks)
Plot Summary: Your roots can always lead you home… Amjad cradles his baby daughter in the middle of the night. He has no time to mourn his wife’s death. Saahil and zahra, his two small children, are relying on him. Amjad vows to love and protect them always. Years later, saahil and his best friend, Ehsan, have finished University and are celebrating with friends. But when the night turns dangerous, its devastating effects will ripple through the years to come. Zahra’s world is alight with politics and activism. But she is now her father only source of comfort, and worries she’ll never have time for her own aspirations. Life has taken her small family in different directions – will they ever find their way back to each other?
The family tree is the moving story of a British Muslim family full of love, laughter and resilience as well as all the faults, mistakes and stubborn loyalties which make us human.
Things I Liked:
1. I love reading about families. Large families, happy families, messed up families, dysfunctional families and nuclear families. They are some of my favourite things to read about, so from the offset this book had me interested. This family unit is quite unique, a father raising his two young children on his own, we follow this little unit through the years and see them navigate some pretty difficult things. I loved getting to know these people and see their lives through the years. Starting in the 1990s right up to 2018.
2. The family of Amjad, Saahil and Zahra is at the heart of this book. A broken family, following the passing of Neelam (Amjad's wife), we see them trying to cobble on and make it work. The first quarter of this book we see the early years of this family, following the days and years immediately after the passing of Neelam. We see Amjad dealing with his own grief and loss, and at the same time trying to be both parents to his young son and his newborn baby girl. He is struggling, trying to do basic home chores and raising a little baby, his pain and confusion and struggle are palpable and you find yourself rooting for him and his family.
3. The book takes into this world and immersive and engrossing. We get a taste of what it means to be a Muslim in the West today. The rampant Islamophobia, the daily micro-aggressions and being on edge constantly is bought to life so well in this book. It will break your heart! And even though we read about these things in the Newspaper and in personal essays, reading about it here, seeing young children and a family go through this makes it incredibly real and makes this an important read for those to wish to understand this a bit better.
4. There are three main characters in this book: Amjad, Saahil and Zahra.
Amjad: The book starts with him, in the aftermath of his wife's untimely death. He does his best to raise his two children, worry about their futures and fight his mother on remarriage. Amjad is a wonderful man, reminiscent of all desi dads and reading about him and getting to know him will just warm your heart. We see them through the years, go through joys and pains and holding on and doing right by his family. He is such a good man and such a good Dad. Not perfect, but good.
Saahil: He will a little bit break your heart. From being a 10 year old who loses his mum and has to pretty much grow up overnight and become a sort of parent to his baby sister, not complaining about any of it. Seeing him grow up, do well and have dreams and aspirations and then have those dreams collapse was just...ugh! He is a well-written, slightly infuriating and relatable character.
Zahra: We end up spending a lot of time with Zahra in the second half of this book. We pretty much follow her from the day she's born to her mid-twenties and through the course of this book she feels like someone you know or she feels like you. A woke, well-informed, socially and politically aware young woman who sees the problems in society and does her bit to solve them. I really liked her.
5. The other characters in this book, the so called secondary characters are also wonderful and so important to this tale. I especially loved Amjad's Ammi (mother), his friends Harun and Ken, Zahra's best friend Libby and Ehsan- Saahil's best friend. All of these people get enough space and their stories and voices add to the narrative. Especially Harun, Meena and Ehsan, I loved this family and their arc broke my heart.
6. Race and Racism is an integral part of this book and story and shapes very critical outcomes in this story. Like I said before, this book shows us what it feels like being Muslim in today's world. The constant othering and being on the defensive, being asked a million seemingly innocuous questions but they're intent being far from innocent. Racism also plays a horrible role in changing the lives of several people in this book. I feel like stories like this should be required reading for anyone who claims to not understand Racism.
7. The thing I loved best about this book was how one single night, one incident and one horrible act of violence can completely change things and alters lives. This devastation from one stray night is shown so brilliantly.
8. Oh, before I forget to mention it, I really enjoyed the writing. It felt smooth and easy and full of some amazing characters that felt real.
Things I Didn't Like:
Well, I did really enjoy this book for most part, but somewhere along the 45% mark, it begin to slowdown and not in a good way. It dragged a bit and I would have preferred it a little bit shorter. Also, certain things were repeated over and over again and that added to the slow pace of the book.
Rating: 3.5/5
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