Good Intentions: ‘Captivating and heartbreaking’ Stylist

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The right kind of brown family who have stayed up to watch the fireworks, waiting to see the celebration of the end of one Western year and the ringing in of a new one. I loved this book from the reading the first page, so to finally be able to finish the story was amazing for me, and I loved every second of it. Khalil and Mariam turn to their phones, his parents watch the TV with tired eyes, waiting for it to be over.

Nur is, ostensibly, worried about his family will take the fact that he’s dating a Black girl, so elects not to reveal this to them.Good Intentions is a stunning debut willing to contend with the uglier realities of our culture without solely placing blame on a parental monolith, without refusing to question the cyclical nature of perpetuated abuse, and without brushing past the need for millennial accountability. Every year, they invite her, and every year she comes demanding to know why she is here, saying this is not her new year, that she only celebrates the Islamic New Year. He lives a life that he hides from his family, he first meets Yasmina at a Party in November 2014 and after four years what will their faith bring? Sounds good, Liz, and I like the idea that this is bringing something a little different to the ups-and-downs-of-millennial-love sub-genre. An interesting premise and a book that I enjoyed reading even as it left me feeling a little unsatisfied.

The depth poured into each relevant character does not detract from the fact that this is Nur's story, their exposition only adding to Ali's commentary on the drawbacks in how Nur happens to navigate his life. As I said earlier, one of the major topics discussed in this was the world of technology, and the hardships of the dating world while the technological advancement of online dating is happening simultaneously. Throughout this book, we follow the life of Nur, as he takes his course of life through family status, relationship status, and finding out his overall identity. To start with the positive, I liked the premise of this novel - a modern, contemporary examination of a relationship that has themes of religion, race, family obligations and mental health issues at the heart of it.

It paints an utterly human picture of South Asian life, endearing and distasteful qualities all wrapped into one per the most humble, yet critical means. Slowly they get up, tell their parents they’ll see them in the morning, and as they leave the room Khalil locks eyes with Nur again, his curiosity burning. Yes, indeed – it’s interesting for the male perspective (although we’ve had Open Water, obviously) and the cultural and mental health areas covered.

Yes, that was a nice point I didn’t know about in advance – I was busy trying to work out where exactly it was set! That he has spent years hiding his personal life from them to preserve his image as the golden child. He takes Islam and it's teaching as backward and is thoroughly making it out like the people who believe in it's teaching are "backward" and that doesn't sit right with me.

Told through an alternating timeline over four years, we see Nur and Yasmina meet, fall in love and move in together. 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. An exploration of the ways that race and family ties may complicate or imperil romance even if everyone means well. this showed the more ugly side of love, and had a not overly positive ending, but that added to uniqueness of the narrative.