Best of Friends - Kamila Shamsie

Description

'A profound novel about friendship. I loved it to pieces' MADELINE MILLER
'A shining tour de force' ALI SMITH

CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, DAILY MAIL AND FINANCIAL TIMES

A dazzling new novel of friendship, identity and the unknowability of other people - from the international bestselling author of Home Fire, winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction

Fourteen-year-old Maryam and Zahra have always been the best of friends, despite their different backgrounds. Maryam takes for granted that she will stay in Karachi and inherit the family business; while Zahra keeps her desires secret, and dreams of escaping abroad.

This year, 1988, anything seems possible for the girls; and for Pakistan, emerging from the darkness of dictatorship into a bright future under another young woman, Benazir Bhutto. But a snap decision at a party celebrating the return of democracy brings the girls' childhoods abruptly to an end. Its consequences will shape their futures in ways they cannot imagine.

Three decades later, in London, Zahra and Maryam are still best friends despite living very different lives. But when unwelcome ghosts from their shared past re-enter their world, both women find themselves driven to act in ways that will stretch and twist their bond beyond all recognition.

Best of Friends is a novel about Britain today, about power and how we use it, and about what we owe to those who've loved us the longest.

Review

The book is set in the late 1980s in Karachi and then 30 years later in London. There is no flip flopping, it's a linear timeline.

We first meet Maryam and Zahra as 14 year old best friends. I learnt quite a few things I didn't know about life in Karachi in the 80s but I wasn't really drawn into the characters of the two girls.

I felt like giving up reading this book, but decided to wait and see if the book was different once the girls were older. I'm pleased to say that for me it did improve but I still didn't love it. The writing was good and certainly highlighted political and social media issues. It covered the friendship that lasted 30 years. However, for me it moved far too slowly. I felt I wasn't progressing in understanding the lives of the two girls as I turned each page.

The book has had many rave reviews, but for me it didn't hit the spot.

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review.

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