Uzma Jalaluddin

A modern-day Muslim Pride and Prejudice for a new generation of love. Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn't want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and dresses like he belongs in the seventh century. When a surprise engagement is announced between Khalid and Hafsa, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and the unsettling new gossip she hears about his family. Looking into the rumors, she finds she has to deal with not only what she discovers about Khalid, but also the truth she realizes about herself.

Ayesha at Last

Pride and Prejudice with a modern twist AYESHA SHAMSI has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn’t want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and dresses like he belongs in the seventh century. When a surprise engagement between Khalid and Hafsa is announced, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and his family; and the truth she realizes about herself. But Khalid is also wrestling with what he believes and what he wants. And he just can’t get this beautiful, outspoken woman out of his mind.

A Novel

Ayesha At Last

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"... I knew my heart was claimed by you" 

THIS IS SO CUTE BUT LIKE SO SAD GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES 😭😭😭

《When I think of you, I see my future.》 

"It's for your poetry, I like to imagine you writing in a notebook I gave you." 

Khalid thought about this. "I probably shouldn't be"

"You can leave any time. Your car is right there." 

Ahh they're now taking cooking lessons with her Nani together. So cute 😭😭💕

Ayesha's circle was deformed, but Khalid’s turned out perfectly round. She stuck out her tongue and he smiled.

This 🔥🔥 oof and the fact she looked straight at him when she said it 🔥🔥🔥

Angeli

I struggled reading the first few chapters (I really hated Sheila Watts) but eventually got hooked and was unable to put it down when the story picked up the pace.

Emily Burns

I absolutely loved this book, start to finish. A modern Muslim retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Toronto is exactly what I needed.

Assia

non la halal romance c'est trop naze je vous ecouterai plus jamais

a very sweet romance, i enjoyed it thoroughly! really nice character progression + the scene setting was so lovely

My favourite takeaway from this book was to “always choose laughter over tears; to live in a comedy instead of a tragedy”.

As seen on The Today Show! One of the best summer romance picks! One of Publishers Weekly Best Romance Books of 2019! A modern-day Muslim Pride and Prejudice for a new generation of love. Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn't want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid, who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and who dresses like he belongs in the seventh century. When a surprise engagement is announced between Khalid and Hafsa, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and the unsettling new gossip she hears about his family. Looking into the rumors, she finds she has to deal with not only what she discovers about Khalid, but also the truth she realizes about herself.

Gillian Rose

Oh, this was such a sweet, modern Pride & Prejudice-esque story with Muslim Canadian leads! It was a tad overstuffed and I'm always trying hard to match the original story in my head, but I was glad that there was also some Shakespeare elements (and maybe a little The Importance of Being Earnest??). It was lovely seeing these two fall in love despite their differences and family drama.

Amanda

Final third is much more compelling than the first half. This book suffers from too much set up and excessive description (no reader cares what colour the random student's leggings are, I promise you). The attempt at recreating Pride and Prejudice hinders the storytelling. At times the author tries to hold too closely to the original work causing her original characters to suffer in comparison. Other times the deviances from the original come across as awkward and unrealistic to the characters that have been created.

At times amusing, in general the book is longer than it should have been with too much time spent on aspects that did not need as much attention as they got.

Jantien 

A very interesting and heartfelt way of examining family, tradition, and love and how the three can clash with each other. I hate Hafsa and Farzana

Jenna Thornton

Stephanie Ridiculous

I super enjoyed this. Not a full five stars as there were a few minor things that irked me, but easy to move past & won't stop me from recommending this to others!

Sonja H

"Ayesha at Last" war ein weiteres Buch auf meiner Sommerleseliste und ich bin froh, dass ich es gelesen habe, denn es hat gewissen Ansichten hinterfragt.
Es ist die Geschichte aus "Stolz und Vorurteil" von Jane Austen in einem muslimischen Setting.

Ayesha ist eine moderne Muslimin, die dennoch verstrickt ist in traditionellen Rollen und immer wieder ihren eigenen Standpunkt behaupten muss. 

Khalid ist ein sehr strenggläubiger Moslem, der mit seinem Jabador und seiner Weigerung, Frauen die Hand zu geben im Berufsleben aneckt und von seiner neuen Chefin aufgefordert wird, sich anzupassen. 

Auch wenn Jalaluddin hier letztendlich eine Romanze zwischen sehr unterschiedlichen Menschen erzählt, deren unzählige Irrungen und Wirrungen an Shakespeare erinnern, so gelingt es ihr doch, dabei einige kritische Themen wie Religion und moderne Gesellschaft, Identität, Missverständnisse innerhalb der Glaubensgemeinschaften und Selbstsuche sehr vorsichtig und gefühlvoll zu beleuchten.

Ich habe beim Lesen gemerkt, dass ich eigentlich viel zu wenig weiß über diese Kulturen, dass ich zwar Verständnis für Frauen habe, die ein Kopftuch tragen (was ich heutzutage in unserem Land sehr mutig finde), aber mich nie mit der Rolle des Mannes im Islam beschäftigt habe, der als gläubiger Moslem sicher auch einige innere Kämpfe austragen muss, möchte er in einem - trotz allem - christlich geprägten Umfeld leben.

Ja, es gibt hier und da ein paar Stellen im Buch, die ich nicht ganz nachvollziehbar fand, aber dennoch hat mich diese Geschichte nachhaltig berührt und beschäftigt mich noch immer viel. Ich möchte mehr über diese Problematik erfahren, mich tiefer hineindenken und bin nun auf der Suche nach AutorInnen, die dieses Thema ebenfalls in Prosaform behandeln.

"Ayesha at Last" ist ein wichtiges Buch, das sich locker liest, aber dennoch viel Eindruck hinterlässt. Empfehlenswert!

Nikki

i just wanna ask: where is the sequel pls

Cindy Lieberman

Adorable! A reimagining of Pride and Prejudice through the Pakistani (Muslim) community in Toronto, with a more serious theme about cultural norms and stereotypes and how the wearing of religious garments can potentially limit careers. But imagine Mr. Darcy as a social awkward, 26-year-old religious man who lives at home with his overbearing mother and can barely look at a woman. Enter Ayesha, the poor relation to a large wealthy family, whose best friend works with Mr. Darcy and whose spoiled cousin convinces Ayesha to be her stand-in as a volunteer organizer for a community event to help save the mosque Mr. Darcy attends....with mistaken identities, arranged marriages, and missed opportunities. This is a quick and enjoyable diversion!

Amy Maddess

“Sometimes there are no words, only sunshine on your heart.”

Sahi K

More of a 3.5.

This has been a year for desi P&P retellings, so I was very excited when the US release date for this book was announced and I also managed to get the ARC. I had heard a lot of good things about it, but I kept my expectations normal because I feel P&P doesn’t always translate to contemporaries very well and I didn’t wanna be totally disappointed. So I’m quite happy to report that I had fun reading this book. 

Both Ayesha and Khalid are in their late 20s but their views on what they want to do and how they want to get married are drastically different. Ayesha maybe a substitute teacher but her true passion is poetry, even though she tries to curb that side of her because it’s not practical and she wants to support her family. She is religious, always dons her hijab, is very very loyal to her family but is also pretty liberal in her views. She is also not very interested in marriage but there are instances when she wonders about how she will find her true love or happiness, and I really empathized with her. Khalid on the other hand is much more conservative and socially awkward, has decided to let his mom pick his wife because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, and is quite adamant in his belief that love and happiness comes after marriage. He is actually very sweet and kind (mostly) but because of his attire, people always tend to make harsh judgments about him. 

There is the usual misunderstandings and prejudices that come into play like in P&P when they start interacting with each other, and I quite enjoyed their dynamic develop. They are actually quite judgmental about the other many times through the story but Khalid learns a lot and grows into someone who is more accepting. Ayesha apologized a bit too but I didn’t see the same amount of growth in her. But the way their friendship blossomed, how they couldn’t stop falling for each other but still tried to for the sake of their families and their mutual pining really made this a nice romcom. 

The writing was quite easy to get through, even though it felt a little off at times. The use of Urdu words in between was amazing, but there were a lot of Shakespeare references too that took me out of the story a bit (it’s a personal problem though and other readers might really enjoy it). I liked that the author tries to represent different kinds of Muslims in her story - from the more conservative and faithful to those on the more liberal side of the spectrum, and everywhere in between. The whole desi “aunty brigade” who are nosy and all up in your business, our obsession with early marriages, every MIL’s search for a docile daughter in law and all the mama’s boys made for very nostalgic reading and reminded me of so many people in my own extended family. I was actually delighted to see that both the families in this story are originally from Hyderabad, my hometown in India and it made me feel like going home soon. The tone of book was very humorous for most of the first half and I really enjoyed it, but it turns into a lot of drama in the latter half. While the author sensitively tackles issues like workplace harassment and Islamophobia, I think it went a little too far, especially with the horrible boss. There are also too many other subplots and each of the supposed villains felt like extreme caricatures, which made the second half of the book overly dramatic and bit dragged on. 

Overall, this was a mostly sweet and fun romcom to read which I finished rather quickly. If you like Jane Austen retellings and would love some desi Muslim representation in them, then this is a lovely book to read. It can get tad over the top at times but it’s mostly very enjoyable.

Taylor

Book #1 for the #dtsreadathon!

An excellent story about faith, love, and staying true to yourself! 

4.5 Stars

cossette

I'm always a sucker for Pride and Prejudice and all retellings of it, and when the theme of this month's book club was retellings, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to finally read Ayesha at Last. As a main character, I loved reading about Ayesha and her journey to becoming herself, at last. Khalid was such an endearing love interest, and I really appreciated that Uzma Jalaluddin chose to delve deeper into his storyline so we found out more about "Mr. Darcy" - his protectiveness over his sister, his duty to his family, his commitment to his religion, his struggles at work (we've all dealt with a Sheila of our own) easily made him my second favorite character in Ayesha at Last. I felt like the characters were mostly well-developed, and found the relationship between Ayesha and her best friend Clara so endearing. Overall, I'd probably give Ayesha at Last a 4.5/5!

Kayla 

Book Chat: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I loved this book! I thought both characters were amazing and showed so much growth in the story. I was on team Khalid from the get go and really felt disgusted by the racial discrimination and Islamophobia he went through at his work place. I wanted to call the police and report his boss! .
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Ayesha was amazing! So strong willed and took a chance on all her dreams! While she may have misjudged Khalid’s character, she was a loyal friend to Khalid and her cousin even when her cousin didn’t seem to deserve it. .
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The only tiny issue I have is that I wish this wasn’t marketed as a Pride and Prejudice retelling. I understand why it was, because there were some similarities but I found myself thinking that those plot points aren’t really specific to P&P. The grandfather quotes a lot of Shakespeare and I think it would have been so amazing to try and market this novel as some sort of Shakespeare retelling. This didn’t effect my enjoyment of the book at all! I was just a bit confused by the comparison. Perhaps because I’ve already read two similar-culture-retellings of P&P.

Moray Lyle McIntosh

There's so much heart and well-meaning intention behind this book that I wanted to love it. It places its Muslim characters unashamedly front and centre but Jalaluddin’s writing just isn't strong enough to carry everything she wants to do. At first I was impressed by the traditional way that she portrayed Khalid who lives his life according to his devout faith. This changes later in the book but it bothered me that this change was less about him willingly discovering a different balance for his faith and more about having to make changes in order to integrate in a hostile environment. Of course, this is a sacrifice that many devout Muslims must find themselves making but in this book this didn’t come across as a sad reflection of Islamophobia in society in the way that it should have. In the end it looks like a judgement that “moderation” is the antidote to extremism without making the proper distinction between devotion and extremism. These are complex issues and need a complex treatment. 

Many of the characters devolve into pantomime heroes and villains, representing particular virtues and vices and this soon becomes unbearable. I honestly began to struggle with it within a few pages. The lack of complexity and exaggeration of character traits overwhelmed many of the positive elements and sadly, part of the problem seemed to be the Pride and Prejudice element. Jalaluddin’s characters were forced to follow a similar path to Austen’s and because the characterisation lacked depth it felt like they were constantly making choices that didn’t make sense. Worst of all, the more original parts of the story, the bits that had the most potential for solving some of these problems, were never fully explored. I would have loved to have understood more about several of the women, Hafsa, Zareena and Farzana. Exploration of their situations and characters could have achieved many of Jalauddin’s aims far better than the final result.

A last word on the poetry. Ayesha dreams of being a poet but authors should really stay away from this character trait unless they're accomplished poets themselves. Ayesha's attempts are excruciatingly bad.

Alex Hill 

This isn't what I was expecting but honestly I think it was better that way. I enjoyed it but I did have a few issues with the book as the miscommunication trope was used throughout it and that's just not my thing.

Ruth Parker 

My initial thought was... does the book world really need a retelling of Pride and Prejudice? The answer... is yes. This is one of the cutest books I’ve read in a long time with a fantastic premise and brilliant execution. It tackles issues of race and gender and opened up my eyes to a world I didn’t know much about. I loved it and I wish I could read it fresh one more time.

Lisa W.

What an amazing read. My heart is so full, my mind is so opened. I am genuinely satisfied. This book has some of the worst human beings ever to grace a book but that made me appreciate the few decent characters created. There was plot twist, character depth and development and cultural knowledge shared that I couldn’t put it down. 

I wanted to rank the worst characters but they are pretty darn equal. 

1. Farzana is just a horrible woman. I felt so much relief when she was shamed. Do I feel guilty about it? Not one bit. I was wondering when the truth would come to light and when it did it was glorious. 

2. Hafsa was a spoiled, jealous hearted monster who didn’t deserve the one thing in particular that happened to her. ( only because no woman deserves that). However she was despicable like everyone else and I hated her character every moment along the way. 

3. Tarek was an amazingly developed character who was very twisted and complex. I was very shocked to learn so much about him. Half the time I didn’t want to believe this could be true. Very shocked. 

4. Sheila was utter trash. She deserved much worse than she received but then again that would be taking khalid out of his character and we didn’t need that. Geez she was an HR nightmare. 

Before I talk about the characters I liked I wanted to say this book really touched something in me. As a person who prides themself on diversity and inclusion I was glad to take a glimpse and learn cultural and religious group of people I have never sought that have a meaningful conversation with. Secondly I saw parallels with Ayesha being a teacher and feeling like she always has to be on. I saw parallels to Clara and her HR background. Seeing how she responded to prejudice and my respect being earned to her for being a professional and an ally. The idea of being considered a spinster before you are even thirty. Also the constant battle I fought having a mindset of millennial and a feminist. It was hard to not yell and get frustrated by so many of the comments but it provided growth. 

The characters I truly like were of course Ayesha, Clara, Khalid, Nana and Nani. Although I was somewhat indifferent to his character, I really loved Amir’s storyline. 

Overall an excellent read.

Ayesha at Last

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