Review of SOMEONE LIKE HER by Awais Khan

4 Stars 

As in his previous book No Honour, Awais Khan tackles societal injustice, especially the mistreatment of women. 

This novel begins in Multan, a conservative city in Pakistan.  Ayesha, 27, is single and independent, working for a charity which supports victims of domestic violence.  She catches the attention of Raza Masood, an ultra-wealthy man, who decides he wants to marry her.  Ayesha, however, is not interested and continues to see her boyfriend Saqib.  Unaccustomed to not getting what he wants, Raza exacts revenge.  Her family sends her to London to recover and protect her from further retribution.  There she meets Kamil who has suffered trauma of his own.  The two become friends and a romance buds, but it seems that Ayesha has not escaped Raza’s reach. 

Ayesha is a character whom the reader cannot but cheer for and empathize with.  An unconventional young woman, she is feisty and outspoken.  She eschews society’s expectation that she marry and, instead, has a relationship with a man whom she knows her family would not let her marry because of his lower status.  Nonetheless, she loves her parents.  Because of Raza’s actions, her self-esteem and confidence are weakened, but her inner strength helps her to find the courage to fight.

Raza, as an only son, has been indulged all his life.  As a result, he feels entitled and behaves arrogantly.  He is egotistical, obsessive, vindictive, and ruthless.  Though he can be charming when it suits his purpose, Ayesha thinks of him as a demon, and that is perhaps the best description.  I found him somewhat unbelievable because he has no redeeming qualities and his capacity for evil is boundless.  Nonetheless, I know, given that Raza’s behaviour realistically reflects what does happen in the world, that such odious people with no humanity do exist.

Raza’s foil is Kamil, a sensitive, gentle, and compassionate man.  He behaves the exact opposite of how a man is expected to behave in traditional Pakistani culture.  I loved that he is willing to let Ayesha take the lead and is “proud always to stand a step behind her.”  Because of trauma from his past, he attends a support group.  He keeps this a secret from his family, knowing they would think he was mentally ill.  One person, upon hearing about his attendance, says, “’A Pakistani man in therapy?  Now, I’ve seen everything.’” 

There are a couple of elements that bothered me.  The kidnapping scene involving Russian “goons from the dark web” seems a little far-fetched.  There are some inconsistencies that irked:  a woman says, “’I don’t know if she’s in love with you’” and then shortly afterwards states, “’I saw the way she looked at you sometimes.  There was definitely something there.  I think she is in love with you.’”  One moment Ayesha “didn’t close her eyes  . . . [because] she wanted to be fully present for every slight” yet then she closes “her [eyes] to the entire ordeal.”  Ayesha’s mother is supposedly subservient to her husband, yet more than once she talks back to him? 

I found it very difficult to like Ayesha’s parents.  At times they seem loving and supportive, yet at other times they manipulate her and place their financial security above any concerns for Ayesha’s safety and happiness.  Furthermore, the relationship between her mother Ishrat and Neelam, Ayesha’s aunt, is difficult to understand.  After the way Neelam has behaved, Ishrat still entrusts Neelam, a malicious gossip, with a secret that endangers her daughter?!

This book focuses on domestic violence – how women are abused and have virtually no recourse to justice.  At the charity where she works, Ayesha sees a young woman with her entire face bandaged and Ayesha knows immediately that she’s been attacked by her husband and wonders only, “Was it acid?  A knife?”  In the end, that husband avoids any consequences.  Ayesha is told that “’Over one thousand women have suffered such attacks in recent years in Pakistan alone’” but that “for most justice was merely an illusion.”  For those who are rich, it is especially easy to avoid prosecution; they can hire the best lawyers, threaten the victim’s family, and buy the influence of corrupt police.  What I appreciated is that the book also sheds some light on men who are victims of domestic abuse.  In his support group, Kamil hears about men as well as women suffering at the hands of abusers. 

As I read the book, I wondered how the book would be received in Pakistan.  The author does not portray the country in a positive light but exposes the darker side of Pakistani culture with its oppressive patriarchy.  There is an attempt to suggest that the entire country is not bad; one woman says, “’Sure, some people have antiquated beliefs, but you can’t call the entire country bad just because of a section of people.’”   Nonetheless, the comments that stick in my mind are ones like, “So much of a woman’s prospects in Pakistan depended on her beauty, her ability to bear beautiful sons who would keep the family’s legacy alive and take its name forward.  Daughters . . . well, they were expendable burdens that had to be unloaded on the first unsuspecting family that could be found” and “’Once you go to your husband’s home, only your funeral should emerge from those gates.  Don’t come back to us alive.’  These were the words she’d grown up hearing in the family, uttered mostly by men, but also by lots of women” and “Pakistanis in a nutshell . . . They couldn’t wait to catch the drama, but when it came to offering help, they were the first to look away.”

Though the book is tempered with some humour, primarily in the banter between Kamil’s mother Jamila and her two children, I found myself angry, sad and horrified most of the time. There are indeed some truly horrifying scenes, though the violence is not gratuitous but integral to the plot and necessary for thematic development.   In the last section, the tension becomes almost unbearable. 

Like No Honour, this book is an uncomfortable and unsettling read, but one that should nonetheless be read.

See my review of No Honour at https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2021/09/review-of-no-honour-by-awais-khan.html.