I am SO far behind on my reviews so here’s to hoping I can remember enough about this book to put together a full review. The odds are not in my favor but I’m going to try. Here’s some more filler text!
A Place for Us is set among a Muslim Indian family living in the United States. It’s a bit of a generational novel – the stories of the parents as a young couple, of the children as youngsters, of the children as adults all intermingled. There has been a schism in the family and the only son has been far afield for some time but now the eldest sister is getting married and everyone is finally back in one place. Wounds heal and reopen, etc, etc.
It’s a familiar story in a new setting. I picked it up because I recently attended my first Indian wedding (Sikh, not Muslim) and while the one I went to did serve alcohol (oh god did they ever, my liver is still in recovery) the gist seemed about the same. We learn about the parents migrating to America as a very young, newly-wed couple. We learn about the children growing up in America, with pivotal scenes around September 2001. And we gradually, finally learn about what broke them all apart. It’s well written, if predictable.
Unfortunately, the book is ultimately pretty forgettable. But it did remind me that I wanted to watch that new Amazon show, Made in Heaven, so thank you for that!