Home Fire is without a doubt the best book I've read so far this year. It's just incredible, and I've been recommending it to anybody and everybody for the past few weeks now. Winning the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2018, this book has set the bar for modern women's fiction IMO, and I can't wait to see what Shamsie brings out next.
Home Fire opens with Isma, a British Muslim, being detained and interrogated by the US border force after a flight to the States. She's prepared herself for this, knowing that the guards are more likely to stop her, but the number of unnecessary questions they ask is still a little shocking, and causes her to miss her connecting flight.
Back home, the younger twin siblings of Isma, Parvaiz and Aneeka, are missing the guiding presence of their sister, who's travelling to study. With no living parents, the pair are adrift and are learning more about themselves as they move further into adulthood. Aneeka's found a new man, someone who will allow her to leave her family's past behind her, whilst Parvaiz is getting more and more involved in it.
Parvaiz doesn't remember much about his father, but he's always been taught to be ashamed of him: he was a jihadi who died on his way to Guantanamo. Parvaiz has always shunned his past like his sisters, until he meets some men that knew his father. They paint history in a different light, and soon Parvaiz is embroiled in a world that he's not completely sure he wants to be part of.
This book broke my heart and stitched it back together again over and over again. It's the first book I've ever read in which all of the main characters have an Islamic background, and I think this was important as it showed so many different approaches to the religion. I would definitely recommend this to anyone.
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