I related to this, coming from a Pakistani family myself I often think twice before making certain decisions and questioning myself! Since I am unfamiliar with the Muslim customs and holidays, I sometimes had only a general idea about what was going on. Despite my struggles within the story, I can acknowledge that the author is trying to break cultural norms, but also showcases not taking things for granted (i.

As time passes, the secret grows larger and larger and Nur must tell his family risking his status as a good son. The author wrote the book jumping between different years of Nur and Yasmina’s relationship, and though this added suspense or wonder of how each grew as people, it was disappointing to see how Nur’s character was so stagnant. The two try living for themselves and hiding their relationship from their parents but when years go by, the secrecy ends up taking a toll. It is a crackling, wryly clever depiction of standing on the precipice of adulthood, attempting to piece together who it is you're meant to be.But as everything he holds dear is challenged, he is forced to ask, is love really a choice for a second-generation immigrant son like him? In the end, their relationship falling apart was the natural conclusion to Nur's inability to address his own failings, because he had been too busy placing those failings on others rather than ever confronting them within himself. We also have Imran, the friend from University, from a Muslim Pakistani background who has come out to his family, he faces discrimination from his parents because of his sexual orientation. It was heart wrenching reading about Yasmina, an intelligent black woman from a good middle class family allowing herself to be treated like a dirty secret by a racist boyfriend who uses his family’s as an excuse to hide his bigotry.

If I can remember correctly, Nur or Yasmina acknowledge they don't practice Islam as much as they should, but after that was mentioned, it was never showcased again so. I simply think that this book should have uncovered Nur’s internalized racism more than probing on his lack of initiative for marriage. A philosophical, modern-day classic debut, this novel includes absolutely everything that forms a well-made novel.everything that's a no in Islam, is made out to like oh people are this judgmental and it's made out to be that its people's beliefs and that they are rigid to the point of ridiculing it out.

Of course every society and individual has these, but really painful as the great writing hit home as I am South Asian. A sensitive, smooth-toned, and absorbingly honest novel that makes us question our inner worlds at a time when this kind of self-examination might be the thing that saves us. It's okay if you don't practice that well, or follow the teachings, but it was made out to be so weird about those who do follow, it was made it out like it was how things happened in their times (the parents) and now if they see me in my time they will frown about those choices? Scared to tell his parents about a girlfriend, Nur tries to balance his family life with his love life.The Big Sick meets Nick Hornby in Kasim Ali's debut Good Intentions, a novel about a young man who has hidden a romance from his parents, unable to choose between familial obligation and the future he truly wants. He almost wishes that there were something wrong with him, that he might have to go to the hospital after fainting somewhere, delivered to sterile white corridors, be told there are cancerous cells swarming his body. A lot of that has to do with the characters, who leapt off the page, and the way that the book addressed the conflicts they experienced. In some ways, it was fairly close to what I expected - a novel examining a young man's struggle to tell his conservative British Pakistani family about his Black girlfriend. I can see that this book will be popular with some readers but it just didn't do it for me this time.