Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she’s accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can’t stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who’s disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma’s worst fears are confirmed.
Then Eamonn enters the sisters’ lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to—or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz’s salvation? Suddenly, two families’ fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
You don’t need to recall much about Sophocles’ tale of Antigone to be swept up by Kamila Shamsie’s plot-driven and lyrical contemporary retelling.
Home Fire is about love, religion, politics, and global issues. This book creates empathy, makes one think and takes you on a path you weren’t planning on, if your heart is open to it.
I very much enjoyed this book. It is a quick read and reading after someone who has marked up the parts that hit her made the reading experience a lot more rich. Some passages hit me that didn’t hit her, we had similar reactions to passages we read as well. Sometimes the first part of the passage would hit my fellow reader and the followup hit me. Fun to see our two colors of pens marking up the book and enhancing the reading experience. I can’t wait to see the other two readers reactions to this book.
I had no knowledge of this book before receiving it in the mail. I have mentored refugees from Pakistan, the same family, going on my third year now. This family has taught me so very much and are the most peaceful, all loving people, it amazes me to no end. The prejudice they receive on a daily basis that they take with grace, is amazing.
I will be thinking about the topics explored in this book for a long time. How to create change and what small part I can do.
Peace.
The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an unconventional heroine who pits her beliefs against the King of Thebes in a bloody test of wills that leaves few unharmed. Emotions fly as she challenges the king for the right to bury her own brother. Determined but doomed, Antigone shows her inner strength throughout the play.
Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Whether this is your first reading or your twentieth, Antigone will move you as few pieces of literature can.
You realize I will now be reading Antigone!
Happy Reading.
