This was my first book for the Ramadan Readathon and I absolutely adored it. I was absorbed in the story from start to finish and just couldn't put it down for the whole afternoon. It balanced humour and seriousness really well.
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I've heard lots of good things about how well this book represents Islam and Muslims from people that identify as Muslim, as obviously I'm not able to say how representative this is of the Muslim community. From my own reading experience though, the book highlighted and tackled key issues such as work-place discrimination, Islamaphobia and arranged marriages really well. I also thought it was really tastefully written and the whole romance was really well done.
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I loved Ayesha as a character and I loved Khalid. Ayesha was so loyal and caring and I just loved her inner strength. Khalid was a little ignorant about women to begin with, but he was almost certainly shy and I loved how he opened up and grew across the whole novel. Both Ayesha and Khalid learnt things about themselves and their family over the whole novel and I really liked this growth in their characters. I loved the blossoming romance between the two of them. That being said their romance wasn't straight forward as we had selfish characters like Hafsa and Khalid's meddling mother who I didn't like. And do not even get be started on Sheila the Shark, what a horrid woman.
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Nevertheless, the whole novel was just heart-warming and made me feel all fuzzy inside. I would really recommend this read to everyone as a lighter read that still tackles some serious issues.