Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
Review of Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
“Just remember to pack light. Dreams tend to shatter if you’re carrying other people’s hopes around with you.”
Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin (2019). Published by Berkeley Books.
I don’t know what ended up compelling me to pick this novel off of the shelves of my local library. I think I really liked the purple hijab, or the fact that recently I’ve been on such a kick for South Asian and Middle Eastern literature. I’m rediscovering my people as well as cultivating my love for South Asia, especially as I pathetically try to teach myself Urdu and continue my Bangla studies.
Right off the bat I didn’t think this book would be about South Asians based on the cover image, but once I saw the name Ayesha I knew roughly who our main character was. I’ve also never read Pride and Prejudice, which this novel claims to be a contemporary Muslim version of, so I can’t really attest to the validity of that statement.
I had heard about this book distantly in the past once, maybe by a friend in passing, which might’ve been another reason why I picked it up. I’d never heard of the author before, and it is heartwarming to see new names in the publishing world, especially when a book begins to enter a more public consciousness, such as this one did.
I think the content of the book is very important in today’s society, and I am genuinely glad it was published. Considering how the publishing industry gatekeeps people of color and their stories, I’m proud that this was published.
I’ve said a lot, so let’s jump into the review.
Content
Our main character in this novel is Ayesha, who immigrated to Canada with her family when she was seven years old. Twenty years later, she dreams of being a poet, but she is unmarried, almost thirty, and is substitute teaching for a living. She is every South Asian Muslim’s nightmare, as she is not getting any marriage proposals.
Her cousin Hasfa, however, who is a bit younger, is getting what seems to be hundreds of proposals. It doesn’t hurt Ayesha’s self-esteem at all. Not at allll. Ayesha is a very contemporary Muslim girl in purple hijabs, writing slam poetry to perform in front of people, and, much to a certain man’s horror, is seen ordering a drink at a bar.
Enter: Khalid. He’s a very traditional Muslim who has a long beard and wears the long white robes. He works at a computer-person at a company with Ayesha’s best friend Clara, but they’ve gotten a new boss who’s kind of racist and Islamaphobic.
He can often be seen listening to the Qur’ran with his headphones in, he doesn’t want a girlfriend, and he scolds the bad Muslims he works with who are improper.
But when Clara takes him to meet with Ayesha at a lounge, Khalid is out of his element and considers her to be a bad, questionably faithful Muslim. The plot twist is that the two end up having to work together to make a festival happen for the mosque, which now has financial problems and risks being shut down, as Ayesha impersonates being her cousin.
At the end of the day, both of the main characters stay true to themselves and rock it. Neither are the stereotypical Muslim, as Khalid struggles with his faith in the modern world and Ayesha seems unfaithful to other Muslims (or just Khalid). There is no proper way to be quote-on-quote Muslim, so, at the end of the day, they’ve just showed us how faith weaves in with individuality.
We often swing back and forth every chapter, as this book is told in third person omniscient, and really dig deep into both character’s heads. I think this strategy was good because if stuck to one character, we wouldn’t have had the chance to balance out what’s really going on.
I also think the author did a really good job with the halal romance, although there were just too many characters. After awhile for me it became a game of who’s who, especially when it came to the families. I started noticing this in the beginning with Ayesha’s family and side characters because I was mixing them up, and then as the novel continued this started getting worse. It tried to take on too many topics at once and then it became overwhelming.
I think some of these topics could’ve been touched upon in a separate book, not crammed all into one, because they’re heavier subjects for many. It’s very mundane writing as well, so I could see how someone could easily get bored of it and then feel like they’re chugging to get through the final pages.
Overall Thoughts
It’s a good book for representation. It gets a lot of things right, while serving as informational and a glimpse into the everyday world of Muslims in the West. I recommend it for anyone to read, but I think that you should also beware of the slower pacing and the fact that you might get bored with it.
It’s got romance and humor in it, and our characters are people we often don’t see in mainstream literary fiction in the West. So give it a shot, if you will.
