Good Intentions
Good Intentions by Kasim Ali
Reviewed by Linda
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Thank you to @4thestatebooks for this proof copy!
Nur, a British Pakistani guy, meets Yasmina, a Black Sudanese girl, at Bradford uni, where we watch both students navigate young love and all the obstacles that come along with it. We don’t hear much about love from the British-Pakistani male perspective nor do we discuss divides between ethnic communities so it’s interesting to see this written down.
Nur has been hiding his girlfriend of 4 years afraid to confront his conservative parents who live in Birmingham. We don’t quite know why at first. He wants to be sure she’s the one, wants to be stable in his career, the couple have left their uni town of Bradford and moved in together in Nottingham where they’re still settling in. The reasons are obscenely endless and yet poor Yasmina remains patiently by his side whilst slaving away at her PhD having introduced her family to Nur quite early on. I really wished Yasmina’s friends were as prominent in calling out the bullshit as Nur’s friends were but alas, we continue.
See the problem is, we’ve probably all come across a guy like Nur in someway or another aka an infantilised asshole. Lukewarm at best, Nur killed me as a reader which just goes to show how well Kasim Ali has written this character. Unable to make a legitimate decision, selfish to the core, not quite at one with his own culture, religion or mature enough to broach his issues he blames his parents for his incompetence and puts this baggage onto Yasmina. All the while living in a state of aloofness which is why the ending is all the more blistering and exactly what Nur deserves.
This book is obviously meant to strike up a conversation, which I’m sure it will, but it also left me with a persistent feeling that I’d read something that fed into the negative tropes of our communities with no sort of positive end or solution around guys like Nur. Not that it’s the author’s responsibility to come up with a solution, I just hope that certain readers don’t associate all British-Pakistani males or anti-Blackness with Nur & end up taking this book as gospel.
