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Summary
Summary
In this "total page-turner," wife and mother Faiza is about to find what happens when you have your dream life and are about to lose it... but only if you're caught (Sarah Pearse, New York Times bestselling author of The Sanatorium ).
At the school gates, Faiza fits in. It took a few years, but now the snobbish white mothers who mistook her for the nanny treat her as one of their own. She's learned to crack their subtle codes, speak their language of fashion and vacations and haircuts. You'd never guess, seeing her at the trendy kids' parties and the leisurely coffee mornings, that her childhood was spent being bullied and being embarrassed of her poor Pakistani immigrant parents.
When her husband Tom loses his job in finance, he stays calm. Something will come along, and in the meantime, they can live off their savings. But Faiza starts to unravel. Creating the perfect life and raising the perfect family comes at a cost - and the money Tom put aside has gone. Faiza will have to tell him she spent it all.
Unless she doesn't...
It only takes a second to lie to Tom. Now Faiza has mere weeks to find $100,000. If anyone can do it, Faiza can. She's had to fight for what she has, and she'll fight to keep it. But as the clock ticks down and Faiza desperately tries to put things right, she has to ask herself: how much more should she sacrifice to live someone else's idea of the dream life?
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Ali-Afzal's solid debut follows an English Pakistani woman who is desperate to fit into her affluent Wimbledon neighborhood. Over the past few years, Faiza Saunders has secretly blown through her family's £75,000 emergency fund with a series of "shorthand" purchases meant to show she's a "yummy mummy," that her three kids belong with their peers, and that her marriage is enviable. When her husband, Tom, loses his job, Faiza is convinced he will leave if she tells him about the depleted fund, and she has a matter of weeks to replenish it through whatever means necessary. As the lies snowball, so does the anxiety. At the heart of the story are the complicated issues Faiza deals with: a desire to provide her children with a life free of the racism she endured, her struggle to code switch to please others, and the real discord between her and her husband ("For Tom, money was utility and security. For me, it was a solution to all kinds of problems"). While Ali-Afzal makes this overlong by a few too many redundant scenes involving the central dilemma, she ably conveys how money has become a taboo subject for the couple. Chock-full of understandable bad decisions, this page-turner is sure to get readers talking. Agent: Jenny Bent, the Bent Agency. (Feb.)
Booklist Review
Like all mothers in London's Wimbledon Village, Faiza follows a strict code of Botox parties, designer bags, and lavish spending. But when her husband, Tom, loses his job, she has six weeks to recover £75,000 or confess two terrible truths: their emergency fund is gone, and she's to blame. To conceal their financial woes and her blunder, Faiza lies to acquaintances, family, and even Tom with terrifying ease. She applies for loans and sells family heirlooms to stave off a looming wave of bills, desperate to cover her tracks just a little longer. As she navigates the worries of her Pakistani immigrant parents, she also grapples with racism from other mothers, fetishization from men, and the struggles of her children, who are half-white. This evocative debut confronts the perils of pretending all is well, exploring in vivid first person how a simple lie can spiral into unforgivable choices. Faiza's deception becomes all-consuming as everything she seeks to save begins to crumble. A suspenseful novel on marriage and morality for readers of Celeste Ng.
Library Journal Review
Ali-Afzal's debut centers on Faiza, an English Pakistani woman living in London's impossibly posh Wimbledon Village. Faiza is a fortysomething mother with a banker husband and a gaggle of shallow friends--the UK version of "ladies who lunch." She is the worst kind of shallow woman, who wants so desperately to fit in and "keep up with the Joneses" that she lies to everyone, including herself. Disaster strikes when Faiza's husband is laid off, and Faiza realizes that they might need to draw on their emergency rainy day fund. The only problem is that there is no emergency cash, since Faiza spent it long ago. Can Faiza keep the truth from her husband long enough to replenish the fund? What follows is one ridiculous situation after the next, with lies piling on top of lies. This audio's saving grace is the narrator, Aysha Kala, who imbues Faiza with depth and brings out the nuances in Faiza's friends and family. VERDICT An interesting premise, but an overlong and exasperating book. Despite the skillful narration, this one is a strictly optional purchase.--Anna Clark