The Family Tree
The Family Tree by Sairish Hussain
Reviewed by Omma and Tanya
📘📒📙📕📗
Where to even start? This story grabs you from the get-go when we realise Amjad is left to care for his newborn daughter Zahra and young son Saahil after becoming a widower.
We then follow his story as he struggles with his loss, takes on a more domestic role while raising his two children while keeping his interfering mum at bay.
The story naturally moves to his son Saahil and his journey through adulthood with his childhood best friend Ehsan. We watch them grow into young adults with big dreams for university until the fateful night of their final exams.
10 years pass and young Zahra is now at university having gone through so much loss and trauma in her early life, and yet she’s still this brilliant strong woman who’s really come into her own.
I can’t even begin to explain how this book made me feel. It’s got me in my feels that no other book has. You feel so much for every character from Saahil to uncle Harun to Amjad. My heart actually ached. I had to hold back my tears.
I loved that Sairish didn’t whitewash the book and was so relatable in so many ways. The characters were very in touch with their Pakistani culture and religion. They struggled along the way as many of us do which made it feel even more real.
If there’s one book that you read this year, make it this one!
