Symphonies in White - Comments

The book is good and the writing is fluid, but the characters put me off. Everyone so far (this is a series so things might change) is either black or white. The heroine Khadija is pure and holy and pious and at times a royal pain. She is condescending and sounds positively bigoted at places. The hero Shahzad is an adulterer, unholy and unreligious person who is shameless and Godless. Yes religion and God play a very strong role in this book and it often takes a holier than thou approach. All said and done, it is a good book and even manages to generate interest for the next in the series.

Symphonies in White is a simple story of an orphan who has to come to terms with her marriage and life in a foreign land.
That’s what it appears to be, but Symphonies in White soon takes on a color of its own and in quick succession we encounter problems faced in developing countries that most of us cannot relate to. The stigma of being an orphan or getting a divorce, the shame of being unloved by one’s spouse, and the quiet resignation to fate that comes so easily to the central character is sometimes impossible to understand and always difficult to empathize with.
A simple but beautiful tale of a young girl who has to come into her own.

Symphonies in White by Beenish Saquib is a rare piece of good writing on Pakistan and the life of Pakistani girls who are uprooted from their home and put into a foreign land. Khadijah’s story is just that, how a girl of less than twenty is treated pitifully by her own relatives and married off to a philandering husband in New York. The book is part of a series and the first instalment keeps one in eager anticipation of the next book in the series.

beautifully written!

beautifully written!