Summary and Reviews of A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Media Reviews

Entertainment Weekly “The thinking person’s summer read, a rich and layered tale about family and assimilation.

Michael Schaub, NPR.org A Place for Us is a stunning novel about love, compassion, cruelty and forgiveness — the very things that make families what they are…[Mirza’s] writing is gorgeous, unadorned but beautiful… a miracle of a book. It is a major accomplishment, a work of real beauty and fierce originality.

New York Times Book Review Ambitious… a family epic that is textured and keenly felt… Mirza draws Amar’s lifelong struggle with the concept of unconditional devotion so poignantly that readers will find it exceedingly relatable. But so too is the mysterious whisper in his ear urging him always to return, no matter how far he strays, back home.

People A rich portrait of a fractured Muslim family…With unwavering compassion, this beautiful heartbreaker unravels the mystery of who may be to blame for Amar’s estrangement.

Ron Charles, Washington Post Absolutely gorgeous...Mirza writes about family life with the wisdom, insight and patience you would expect from a mature novelist adding a final masterpiece to her canon, but this is, fortunately, just the start of an extraordinary career…. Has a household ever been cradled in such tender attention as this novel provides?... As Marilynne Robinson has done with Protestants and Alice McDermott has done with Catholics, Mirza finds in the intensity of a faithful Muslim family a universal language of love and anguish that speaks to us all... In prose of quiet beauty and measured restraint, Mirza traces those twined strands of yearning and sorrow that faith involves. She writes with a mercy that encompasses all things.... Each time I stole away into this novel, it felt like a privilege to dwell among these people, to fall back under the gentle light of Mirza’s words.

The New Yorker [An] impassioned debut novel… Mirza is attuned to the subtle ways in which siblings and parents compete for one another's affection. A ruminative final section, in which the father addresses his wayward son, is a moving coda.

TIME In polished prose that zeroes in on domestic detail and, at its loveliest, recalls Jhumpa Lahiri, Mirza delivers a portrait of a family straining to hold its center amid rebellions both quiet and explosive.

Vanity Fair The book dives into the lives of a Muslim-American family, opening on the eve of the eldest daughter's marriage, and examines the intricacies of a family straddling two very different cultures.

Booklist Each complex, surprising character struggles with faith, responsibility, racism, fear, longing, and jealousy, while Mirza conveys with graceful specificity the rhythms of Muslim life, from prayer to wearing hijab, gender etiquette, food, holidays, and values, all of which illuminate universal quandaries about family, self, culture, beliefs, and generational change.

Library Journal Because of the structure, the time line of events is at times confusing. What Mirza does best is show how family dynamics can shape one's life and how seemingly inconsequential events can have a large impact over time.

Publishers Weekly Mirza displays a particular talent for rendering her characters' innermost emotional lives, signaling a writer to watch.

 Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and The Tsar of Love and Techno A Place for Us is a radiantly envisioned, beautifully achieved epic about nearly everything that matters: love, family, faith, freedom, betrayal, contrition, absolution. Fatima Farheen Mirza is a magnificent new voice.

 Charmaine Craig, author of Miss Burma Fatima Farheen Mirza's A Place for Us is a radiant debut. It accretes its power, beauty, and insight through its tender witnessing of private and family life. With her deeply compassionate view, Mirza dignifies terrain often desecrated by contemporary culture: maternity, faith, the bonds of community, the yearning for goodness, and our duty to others. She shows us the destructiveness of our doubt in those we love, and the mercy of forgiveness. Most wondrously, with this felt and moving novel, Mirza creates a place in which rebellion and reverence seem to embrace.

 Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You This extraordinary, piercingly wise novel examines as profoundly as any book I know the threads of injury and grace that stitch together a family. Fatima Farheen Mirza has the passionate intelligence and moral vision that announce not merely an excellent writer, but a great one. I felt such gratitude reading this fiercely compassionate debut, and such joy at discovering a voice I will follow for the rest of my life.

Reader Reviews

Cathryn Conroy
A Must-Read! Profound, Heartbreaking Family Saga
Is love alone enough to heal a fractured family? That is the essential question of this truly magnificent novel by Fatima Farheen Mirza that unerringly examines the joys and sorrows children and their parents wrest upon one another—intentionally or ...   Read More Erica
Authentic view of life of the first and second generation immigrants
If you, your parents, your grandparents or people you know are immigrants to this country, this book will touch you on so many levels. The first generation to the country, holding on to the beliefs that make them the people they are, even if they ...   Read More Sherri A. (Westbrook, CT)
A Need-to-Read novel
Fatima Farheem Mirza's beautiful first novel has been called a novel for our times, and I heartily agree. The way in which she weaves the story of an Indian Muslim family's gathering for a daughter's wedding with the larger tale of identity and ...   Read More Barbara C. (Fountain Hills, AZ)
A Place For Us
I really enjoyed reading this book. The differences between cultures and the tensions created was so well defined. The characters came to life and I as the reader sympathized with each of them. I usually am not a fan of first time authors but this ...   Read More

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