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The Writing on My Forehead

Nafisa Haji

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Aug 28, 2015 Beverly rated it really liked it

This is a 3.5 read for me.

At the beginning of The Writing On My Forehead by Nafisa Haji, Saira Qader longs for her mother’s touch on her forehead to help soothe away her recurring nightmare, like when she was a child. But Saira is now an adult and she will have to find a way to use her past to bring peace to her current adult situation. With this beginning, the reader is immediately drawn into the storyline and once you start reading, the lyrical flow will have you not wanting to put the book do This is a 3.5 read for me.

At the beginning of The Writing On My Forehead by Nafisa Haji, Saira Qader longs for her mother’s touch on her forehead to help soothe away her recurring nightmare, like when she was a child. But Saira is now an adult and she will have to find a way to use her past to bring peace to her current adult situation. With this beginning, the reader is immediately drawn into the storyline and once you start reading, the lyrical flow will have you not wanting to put the book down until you know the answers.

This is a multi-layered story which will appeal to most readers; coming-of-age story, family secrets, ties that bind a family together, and the relationship between mothers and daughters. The storyline centers around Saira, a second-generation immigrant growing up Muslim in America who has one foot in her American culture and the other foot in trying to maintain her cultural roots. The generational issues that arise in the story are so universal that they apply to all cultures, which is one of the strengths of this book. The British leaving India and the partition of India that followed shortly thereafter caused Saira’s grandparents, parents, and others in their generation to make individual decisions on where they would reside. These events will change the dynamics of the family, cause secrets and rife within the families that carried over to Saira’s generation. Of course, Saira’s generation also had secrets that were mostly caused by having to adapt to living outside of India.

I commend the author on bringing the story full circle so the questions raised in the first chapter were answered in the last couple of chapters. However, I wished that the author had delved into one or more of the issues raised in the storyline or answered some of the outstanding questions most readers will have. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy coming of age stories, stories about family ties and those who enjoy immigrant stories. This is the perfect book to bring on vacation or a plane ride. It is a wonderful debut novel and I hope we see more books from this author.

Reviewed by Beverly
APOOO BookClub
March 25, 2009
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