Bloomsbury India’s That Thing We Call A Heart by Sheba Karim is quite anecdotal.
At 220 pages long, this book, That Thing We Call A Heart by Sheba Karim will take you on a nostalgic ride.
The novel follows the story of Shabnam, a high school girl, who will
soon start her college life. She is best friends with Farah but Farah’s
change of fashion or rather, embracing the Islamic custom of Hijab puts
distance between the two. However, the summer that they are apart,
Shabnam discovers ‘That Thing We Call A Heart‘ and that’s what brings the two back together.
This is a simple, everyday story. It is quite episodic and made me
nostalgic. The kind of bond between Farah and Shabnam is enviable.
Farah is a free spirited yet God loving girl. Shabnam is much like
any other girl you will come across. It is, perhaps because of this
trait, I felt an affinity towards Shabnam. I could totally relate to
her. I loved the character of Farah. She is so carefree and mature that
it is no wonder Jamie, Shabnam’s boyfriend, wanted to know Farah better.
Even I want to know Farah better. She easily became my best buddy as
well. Jamie, on the other hand, gave me negative vibes right from the
beginning. And I loved how this character met its conclusion in
Shabnam’s life. Another lovable character is Shabnam’s father whose love
for poetry inspired me to put pen to paper and try writing a Ghazal. Of
course, the credit for this goes to the author, Sheba Karim, who
brought forth the beauty of Urdu poetry so deftly in this book. (I have
loved Urdu poems and Ghazals and so I found myself recommending this
book to almost everyone who shared my interest in Urdu poetry. If I am
not reading a book or writing a book, I am reading Ghalib online.) And
then there were small characters like Dino, Aunt Marianne, Shabnam’s
mother, Ryan, Natasha, and Chotay Dada. The fact that Chotay Dada played
a pivotal role in shaping an eminent episode in Shabnam’s life is
praiseworthy. This character wasn’t present throughout and yet got
himself a justified space in the plot. Even a bench in the park, by the
pie shack, of that of Late Mrs. Joan Milton, was a character witnessing
Shabnam’s love story unwind. The band, Antigone, and their assertive
song that author penned in this book was inspiring.
The author introduced two cultures in this book simultaneously – one,
the high school culture of US, and two, the South Asian culture found
in the households of Muslims living in US. I say, South Asian culture
found in the households of Muslims living in US because, the way Qureshi
and Farah’s family dwell in an alien setup is how any Indian Muslim
will also find himself behaving in the environment
Read the full review here.
Rating: 🌼🌼🌼
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Available: Amazon, Flipkart, In-store
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Available: Amazon, Flipkart, In-store
#HappyReading
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