Kamila Shamsie

A Novel

Best of Friends

A dazzling new novel of friendship, identity and the unknowability of other people - from the international bestselling author of "Home Fire", winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction

Fourteen-year-old Maryam and Zahra have always been the best of friends, despite their different backgrounds. Maryam takes for granted that she will stay in Karachi and inherit the family business; while Zahra keeps her desires secret, and dreams of escaping abroad.

This year, 1988, anything seems possible for the girls; and for Pakistan, emerging from the darkness of dictatorship into a bright future under another young woman, Benazir Bhutto. But a snap decision at a party celebrating the return of democracy brings the girls' childhoods abruptly to an end. Its consequences will shape their futures in ways they cannot imagine.

Three decades later, in London, Zahra and Maryam are still best friends despite living very different lives. But when unwelcome ghosts from their shared past re-enter their world, both women find themselves driven to act in ways that will stretch and twist their bond beyond all recognition.

Best of Friends is a novel about Britain today, about power and how we use it, and about what we owe to those who've loved us the longest.

Suzanne

She was beginning to understand why men and women walked so differently, stood so differently. Men strode, owning the world. Women walked with smaller steps, watched and watchful. 

'When you live in an unjust world you want sports to be a refuge, not a reminder.

I saw another review for this say “this book is about the wrong thing.” I think that’s a good way of putting it. It has too much of what it doesn’t need and not enough of what it needs. She brings us to this major precipice at the end of Part 1 and then just doesn’t cash in on any of that momentum // loses the plot. Great prose buried everywhere too.

Margo Koss

This was very good in parts but fell off, I enjoyed it overall though 

Rebecca Bream

Gelaine Trinidad

safs

This books really captures how childhood friendships (continuing into adulthood) can be the best and the worst.
We follow Zahra and Maryam since their childhood in Karachi.
Never been to Karachi, I don't know how accurate things are, but the way everything was described made it really easy to imagine what it was like in the 80s.
Something then happens which changes the course of their lives. 
Both women end up moving to England and while having a lot in common as kids, their values and morals seem opposite at times.
I thought the book was very beautiful and poignant. It dragged a wee bit in some places, but would recommend it.

This book was provided as an ARC by NetGalley.

This books really captures how childhood friendships (continuing into adulthood) can be the best and the worst.

We follow Zahra and Maryam since their childhood in Karachi.

Never been to Karachi, I don't know how accurate things are, but the way everything was described made it really easy to imagine what it was like in the 80s.

Something then happens which changes the course of their lives. 

Both women end up moving to England and while having a lot in common as kids, their values and morals seem opposite at times.

I thought the book was very beautiful and poignant. It dragged a wee bit in some places, but would recommend it.

This book was provided as an ARC by NetGalley.

This books really captures how childhood friendships (continuing into adulthood) can be the best and the worst.

We follow Zahra and Maryam since their childhood in Karachi.

Never been to Karachi, I don't know how accurate things are, but the way everything was described made it really easy to imagine what it was like in the 80s.

Something then happens which changes the course of their lives. 

Both women end up moving to England and while having a lot in common as kids, their values and morals seem opposite at times.

I thought the book was very beautiful and poignant. It dragged a wee bit in some places, but would recommend it.

This book was provided as an ARC by NetGalley.

Best of Friends A Novel

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