How We Met

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How We Met: A Memoir of Love and Other Misadventures by Huma Qureshi
Reviewed by Omma
📕📕📕📕

From the title of the book, you assume you’ll be reading a love story but How We Met is so much more than that. This debut memoir is about growing up as a first generation South Asian immigrant child in the West Midlands and beyond. Huma explores the expectations placed on us from birth and the pressure to succeed all the while retaining the strong connection to our culture.

In the best possible way, Huma’s parents are the strong driving force in a lot of the decisions she makes in life. Supportive and encouraging, really valuing the importance of education and vital experiences, Huma is able to move to Paris for her Masters. As a fellow Pakistani, this felt so surprisingly like wow, you’re parents are so progressive and cool!

Her relationship with Richard, an English non-Muslim man isn’t at all dramatic the way you would think. There were no shouting matches, threats of being disowned or being shipped off back home. That’s not to say these things don’t happen, but they seem to be the only narratives often portrayed. It was instead a very real depiction of the struggle and pressure many Muslim women face when looking for a partner.

The most disappointing but again unsurprising feature, was the lack of support from her brothers. The cold shoulder felt personal and so unfair when Huma had given so much to her family especially to her parents. I also loved that despite Huma claiming to not be the most ‘religious’, her religion was still so important and the centre of her decisions when it came to Richard.

There wasn’t this long-drawn out secret relationship for years with sneaking around and pre-marital sex but instead she was upfront about the reality of the situation and fortunately, Richard was the ideal open-minded and supportive man.

He honestly sounds so lovely and I hope this story gives other Muslim women and brown girls hope that it can work.

This story is so heartfelt and sweet in every way. It’s authentic and real in its subtle nature and I highly recommend it.

Omma Ahmed

I’ve always loved reading as a kid because it was one of the few Asian-mum approved hobbies although she would have preferred ‘less novels and more school books’! I also grew up in the Harry Potter era so that’s when I really remember falling in love with reading. (Big up my Y7 English teacher for reading a few pages of Philosophers stone at the end of every lesson! You were a real one Mr Williams!) I love being part of this book page (even though I slack massively due to lack of energy and concentration!) because sometimes it felt like a lifeline to help keep me sane. We started it during the time I was feeling really shitty about my Crohn’s disease. It’s been a tough 7 years and the last 3 have probably been the hardest especially mentally so when Linda suggested putting this page together, without hesitation I was down and I’m so proud of us! Writing reviews helped me to organise my thoughts and even resulted in me creating a second Instagram page (@AnOstomateForLife) about my Crohn’s journey. Yes that was a shameless plug and I’m not sorry! Along with reviews, I’ve also loved the creative side of things such as having input in our logo, creating our bookmark and taking book pictures even though it’s awkward af in public! So a few of my fave books: The Godfather by Mario Puzo (made me love the film even more! I’m a self-proclaimed movie buff too btw), Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Healy, The Harry Potter series (obviously), Jemima J by Jane Green, Moonlight over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan, Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple and We Should All Be Feminists Chimamanda Adichie.

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