Sofia Khan is Not Obliged: A heartwarming romantic comedy

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Men shouldn't make assumptions about her based on the hijab. Sofia resents men assuming that her conservative clothing choices imply conservative morals: ' Thanks, strange person, for your opinion, but who said I'm conservative. Talk about judging a person by their scarf.' One of the things I love about Sofia is her no-BS, no lovey-dovey attitude. It's one of the same reasons I love Lizzie Bennet. They're not pining for a man or seeking validation through one, and their resolution to follow their heart (eventually) against mainstream expectations is a model of woman that should be much more present. Because even with a partner, what's right for you and your growth? there were plenty of funny LOL moments and i love how this book is basically saying 'muslims are normal people what is there to be afraid of' etc but also it was so meh.

But there are some assumptions that she lets pass. Like when a man says: ' I meant you're a hijabi and, so you know, you're a certain way. There's depth and whatever to you'. everything about this novel challenges expectations...a sharp, funny but ultimately very normal portrait of life as a British Muslim' THE NATIONAL My sisters are all waiting for me to read the book but I won’t give it to them. Won’t want them to waste their time as I did.Sofia doesn't see it like that. She's planning to adopt Millie, and she's sure it'll be worth it. (Even if it means she and Millie have to stay at Mehnaz's place for a while.) And as Sofia finally begins to live the life she's chosen, she finds both romance and happiness start to blossom.

Widely celebrated here in town, the family's successful resettlement made Kansas City a destination for 35 additional Syrian families. About the book, Amy says: ‘it’s probably one of the most well-known recent publications by a British Muslim genre writer. The novel – and its sequel The Other Half of Happiness (2017) – blend genre motifs with themes of Islamophobia and cultural integration: the ending may not be what you expect…’.ALSO HER MUM...LIKE...SHE IS A GROWN WOMAN LET HER REMARRY IF IT MAKES HER HAPPY WHY MAKE IT INTO SUCH A BIG DEAL OMG AT LEAST SHE ACTUALLY LOVED THIS GUY OMG and then her mum breaking off the engagement coz her daughter is separated from her husband wtf so unnecessary smh Sofia Khan is a Muslim woman working for a publicity company. She was supposed to marry Iman but called it off because she didn’t want to live with his family. In particular, marrying Iman would mean living with a hole in the wall, a hole connecting what would be her home to his parents. Khan has always been an activist, but she first started helping refugees when Kansas City became home to people fleeing Somalia in 2008. She started her own organization during the Syrian refugee crisis in 2016 — to meet needs not covered by official resettlement agencies.

Although I have a lot of negative things to say about this book I feel overall it was worth the read and it definitely made a nice change, as I didn’t really need to use my brain to understand what was going on.This book started to feel off to me from the very start when we find out that Sofia is staying around a dingy apartment all day while Conall is off doing humanitarian work. At the end of the first book, Sofia left to get involved in this and I couldn’t figure out why she no longer helped out, or had she ever helped out with this or when she reconnected with Conall, all those plans fell to the wayside. Her living situation is in dire straits, her husband Conall is distant, and his annoyingly attractive colleague is ringing all sorts of alarm bells. The central conflict in this novel was frustrating, because every character I fell in love with in the first book continued to make completely out of character choices and NO ONE USES THEIR WORDS. Throw in some unnecessarily new characters as potential romantic interests and I was done. The constant conversations about whether a certain character was becoming a “fundo” were relentless and irritating, since it made no sense. So much of this book, for that matter, made no sense. Ayisha is a British Muslim, lifelong Londoner, and lover of books. She read English Literature and went on to complete an MA in Creative Writing (though told most of her family it was an MA in English Literature – Creative Writing is not a subject, after all.) She has spent various spells teaching, photocopying, volunteering and being a publicist. Now, when she isn’t searching for a jar of Nutella in her cupboards, she divides her time between writing and being managing editor at Cornerstones Literary Consultancy.

I was absolutely delighted when I got the opportunity to review THE OTHER HALF OF HAPPINESS by Ayisha Malik, even though it was my first encounter with the beloved character of Sofia Khan. Although I had not read the first book in this series, it did not remotely take away from this beautifully emotional and entertaining story as the author effortlessly filled in any gaps I may have had. But when you find an author as good as Ayisha Malik, I would recommend buying all of her books!! She also talks about things that I could not relate to but were concepts I have heard of before so it was nice reading a detailed perspective on those, such as a married woman living with her in-laws. This book starts with Sofia breaking up with her boyfriend because he wanted to have a hole in the wall between two houses after they get married, theirs and his parents, which was a no-go for Sofia because she does not want to live with her in-laws. The book also discusses polygamous marriage and negative viewed things such as a divorced woman and marrying/dating someone from another race. What I liked about the book is that it discusses the issues in a funny/unserious way which made it interesting to read. Sofia is a nightmare in the kitchen and does not cook. This, combined with her advanced age of thirty, makes her an unattractive match, a fact that’s clear during visits from the parents of her possible matches. She’s supposed to demonstrate her skills in homemaking but she really isn’t domestically inclined.

Most refreshing of all, Sofia doesn’t need to undergo some sort of wild identity crisis before she gets her happy ending. She’s bored rather than bothered by people who are surprised she wears a hijab while no one else in her family does; even her mother doesn’t get it, convinced it will put potential husbands off – as Sofia jokingly points out, “What is the point of being a saint-like daughter to immigrant parents when my decisions are met with derision?” Perhaps not quite as pithy as Bridget Jones – a tighter editing could no doubt have cut a quarter of the text without any loss in terms of plot – but with its light, comic confessional tone, the diary entry format, and even some echoes between the plots, the comparison is inevitable – albeit without Bridget’s alcohol consumption or romances. I laughed, I cried, and I learned about another culture in this wonderful story of love, family, friendship, and facing your past. All of the characters in this book are compelling in their own ways, and I felt completely immersed in all of their emotions and needs as the story developed. Well-paced and interesting throughout, I read this book in one sitting and I really didn't want it to end (fingers crossed this will not be the last we see of Sofia Khan). THE OTHER HALF OF HAPPINESS by Ayisha Malik is more than a romantic comedy, it is a relatable tale about the heart and soul of what makes us love, laugh, and cry, our mistakes, our dreams, and our faults. THE OTHER HALF OF HAPPINESS is just one of those special books that make your whole body hum, and I cannot recommend it highly enough!!! But rather than becoming focal points of the like used in a previous array of novels dealing with the subject of second-generation immigrants struggling to make sense of their own identities, torn between their cultural heritage and that which they have grown up in, instead Malik uses such moments of confusion as comic devices. At work one day, she is distressed after having been called a terrorist. She shares some of her experiences as a Muslim woman and her frustrations with dating, and her boss decides she could write an interesting book on Muslim dating. Although she’s never written a book before, Sofia has a blog and gets a sizable advance to write the book. Researching the Dating World