Secrets Of The Henna Girl by Sufiya Ahmed
Mar. 4th, 2012 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Life as Zeba knows it could be over for good …
Zeba Khan is like any other sixteen-year-old girl: enjoying life, waiting for exam results … and dreaming of the day she’ll meet her one true love.
But her parents have other plans.
In Pakistan for the summer, Zeba’s world is shattered. Her future is threatened by an unthinkable – and forced – duty to protect her father’s honour.
But does she hold the secrets that will help her escape?
16-year-old Zeba’s finished taking her GCSEs and wants to do her A-levels and go to university. But when her parents take her to Pakistan for the summer, she discovers that her father has agreed with her uncle, Taya-ji, that Zeba will marry his son Asif. Although, Zeba doesn’t want to marry her cousin, her dad won’t listen. He’s given his word and it’s a matter of family honour. Zeba must obey.
Trapped in a remote Pakistan village, Zeba’s only ally is her widowed grandmother (Nannyma), a landlowner who’s treated with respect by the villagers. She meets Sehar (a pregnant Birmingham girl forced into marriage with the local landlord’s son) and her maid Farhat (a village girl), through whom she learns about the realities of life in rural Pakistan and forced marriage. When Sehar offers Zeba a way to escape her fate, she must decide whether to take it as it means cutting herself off from everyone she knows ...
Sufiya Ahmed’s YA novel revolves around the issue of forced marriage but for me never really turns it into a compelling plot.
The strongest sections are those where Zeba learns about life in Pakistan. A scene where the elderly imam is forced out of the village for standing up for Zeba is powerfully realised and I enjoyed both the friendship that develops between Shabana and Zeba and the way their behaviour to Farhat slowly improves. Ahmed also successfully makes the point that the abuse of women is not permitted by Islam and is more due to power relationships and unopposed custom, which is propagated by ignorance and fear.
However, Ahmed seems keen not to ascribe blame to anyone, which undermines a lot of the emotion within the story. I would have liked to understand why the girls’ mothers permit their daughters to be put through forced marriages and in some cases, be abused by their husbands and their husband’s families but this remains unexplored. Ahmed never lets Zeba confront Asif about the marriage and the use of Zeba’s guilt as the reason seemed artificial. Finally, the last quarter of the book moves slowly and towards a reconciliation of sorts that I didn’t find credible given all of the earlier events.
Any book about this subject is worth reading, but the lack of a believable story here really robbed it of a lot of the impact that it could have had.
The Verdict:
Sufiya Ahmed’s YA contemporary novel is about the serious issue of forced marriage, but for me neither the plot nor the characters really coalesced to give the story the impact that it should have had. I was particularly put off by Ahmed’s reluctance to explore certain subjects that would seem to be integral to the issue. However there are some powerful scenes in the book and I would check out what Ahmed writes next.
SECRETS OF THE HENNA GIRL was released in the UK on 1st March 2012. Thanks to Puffin for the free copy of this book.
Zeba Khan is like any other sixteen-year-old girl: enjoying life, waiting for exam results … and dreaming of the day she’ll meet her one true love.
But her parents have other plans.
In Pakistan for the summer, Zeba’s world is shattered. Her future is threatened by an unthinkable – and forced – duty to protect her father’s honour.
16-year-old Zeba’s finished taking her GCSEs and wants to do her A-levels and go to university. But when her parents take her to Pakistan for the summer, she discovers that her father has agreed with her uncle, Taya-ji, that Zeba will marry his son Asif. Although, Zeba doesn’t want to marry her cousin, her dad won’t listen. He’s given his word and it’s a matter of family honour. Zeba must obey.
Trapped in a remote Pakistan village, Zeba’s only ally is her widowed grandmother (Nannyma), a landlowner who’s treated with respect by the villagers. She meets Sehar (a pregnant Birmingham girl forced into marriage with the local landlord’s son) and her maid Farhat (a village girl), through whom she learns about the realities of life in rural Pakistan and forced marriage. When Sehar offers Zeba a way to escape her fate, she must decide whether to take it as it means cutting herself off from everyone she knows ...
Sufiya Ahmed’s YA novel revolves around the issue of forced marriage but for me never really turns it into a compelling plot.
The strongest sections are those where Zeba learns about life in Pakistan. A scene where the elderly imam is forced out of the village for standing up for Zeba is powerfully realised and I enjoyed both the friendship that develops between Shabana and Zeba and the way their behaviour to Farhat slowly improves. Ahmed also successfully makes the point that the abuse of women is not permitted by Islam and is more due to power relationships and unopposed custom, which is propagated by ignorance and fear.
However, Ahmed seems keen not to ascribe blame to anyone, which undermines a lot of the emotion within the story. I would have liked to understand why the girls’ mothers permit their daughters to be put through forced marriages and in some cases, be abused by their husbands and their husband’s families but this remains unexplored. Ahmed never lets Zeba confront Asif about the marriage and the use of Zeba’s guilt as the reason seemed artificial. Finally, the last quarter of the book moves slowly and towards a reconciliation of sorts that I didn’t find credible given all of the earlier events.
Any book about this subject is worth reading, but the lack of a believable story here really robbed it of a lot of the impact that it could have had.
The Verdict:
Sufiya Ahmed’s YA contemporary novel is about the serious issue of forced marriage, but for me neither the plot nor the characters really coalesced to give the story the impact that it should have had. I was particularly put off by Ahmed’s reluctance to explore certain subjects that would seem to be integral to the issue. However there are some powerful scenes in the book and I would check out what Ahmed writes next.
SECRETS OF THE HENNA GIRL was released in the UK on 1st March 2012. Thanks to Puffin for the free copy of this book.
