Fiction

Book Review: Love, Identity and Feminism – Sara Jafari’s The Mismatch

As someone who reads a lot of books, I find it harder and harder to be surprised and enthralled with each new read completed. Stories that explore love, romance and family can often be repetitive, sometimes even predictable. This month’s novel was far from any of those things and left me lying in bed, AirPods in, unable to press pause on the audio.

Sara Jafari’s The Mismatch was published by Penguin in 2021. It’s been on my list ever since, and I’m only sorry I’ve just got around to reading it. The book is at its heart a romance, but it also offers insightful musings on identity, religion and class, alongside many other poignant themes. The story jumps back and forward in time, following Soraya’s life in the 2010s and her mother Neda’s, spanning the latter third of the 20th Century. Through a cross-generational narrative, Jafari explores how these two women navigate their first loves and first heartbreaks, as well as wrestling with their identities as British-Iranian women.

We first meet Soraya at the end of her studies where she stands on the brink of adult life. As a result of her strict upbringing and Muslim faith, she is yet to have sex, engage in a romantic relationship, or have her first kiss. She is plagued by the fear that Allah is watching her, mostly instilled (and often used as a threat) by her family. On deciding that she must engage in ‘kissing practice’ to prepare her for adulthood, she starts to date Magnus who on the surface appears to be a typical rugby lad. On the outside, he is a player and completely not her type – perfect for some meaningless experimentation. However, in classic rom-com style, Soraya quickly discovers that there is much more to him than meets the eye.

In the same way that Soraya’s chapters explore her burgeoning romance with Magnus and her coming-of-age story, Neda’s story documents her own upbringing and her eventual marriage to Soraya’s father, Hussain. Beginning with life in 70s Iran, a place alive with political and social change, Jafari carefully depicts the complexities of being a Muslim woman and the simultaneous joys and challenges that it presents. Neda chooses to wear a Hijab, unlike so many women in Iran at the time who see them as a threat to women’s liberation. This interesting look at feminism and how it can mean different things to different women was really refreshing, especially for the romance genre. In the same way that Soraya wrestles with her identity as a woman in modern-day Britain, Neda faces the same challenges throughout her life in Iran and later in the UK too.

I’ve seen this book compared to Sally Rooney’s Normal People, and I can certainly see the similarities. Jafari writes scenes of love tenderly and with intimacy, and I found myself holding my breath across multiple pages in fear of disturbing the story. While love is the central theme of the novel and is brought to life masterfully, it’s the messier ongoings in the background that make it exceptional. The Mismatch depicts stories of addiction, abuse, toxic masculinity and misogyny, all while highlighting incredible friendships, fraught familial relationships and love in all its glory. There’s so much to be said about this book and I enjoyed every page, particularly the audio version which is beautifully read by Ajjaz Awad and Afsaneh Dehrouyeh.

If you’re looking for a page-turning romance that offers more than just surface-level appeal, this is the book for you. I adored Sara Jafari’s debut and can’t wait to read more from this author. Support indie bookshops by buying The Mismatch here.

Words: Beth Barker

Beth Barker is a writer and blogger from Blackpool, now working in Manchester. She also co-hosts Up North Books, a podcast celebrating books and writers from the North of England.

Beth wanted to contribute a monthly review to NRTH LASS in order to shine a light on Northern women writing great books. The North is very much underrepresented in publishing and she hopes a monthly review throughout 2021 will showcase the talent Northern women have to offer.

For more book reviews and insights on publishing in the North, follow Beth on Instagram and Twitter.

Book Review: Isolation, Freedom and Compassion: Sarah Moss’ The Fell

In the autumn of 2021, the latest Sarah Moss arrived on the shelves of bookshops all over the country. While The Fell is much like any of her previous novels – suspenseful, meditative and intelligent – it feels entirely unique. Set in 2020, this is the first book I’ve read that directly tackles the enduring pandemic and its impact on life as we once knew it. Spoiler alert: it’s an absolute literary masterpiece.

The Fell is polyphonic, and while it’s narrated in third-person, it very much captures the inner thoughts of the novel’s key characters. Kate is the instigator of the story – a middle-aged woman who can no longer bear the two-week quarantine she has been placed under. While her son Matt plays his console upstairs, she slips out into the evening dusk for a quick solitary walk, something she has always done. Her neighbour Alice sees her leave, but against the advice of the home secretary during a time of suspicion and hostility, she says nothing. Despite hoping that no one will ever find out about her momentary escape into the great outdoors, Kate soon comes into trouble and incites an entire rescue operation.

Under any other circumstances, a plot like this might sound wholly mundane and even a little boring. But that really is the beauty of it. Amidst lockdown after lockdown, the most ordinary activities became a major event. One of my favourite things about The Fell is how Moss captures the intensity of isolation, crafting stream of consciousness narrations that, much like the experiences themselves, are pretty unbearable to read.

“Dust we are and to dust we shall return, well get on with it then, wouldn’t it be better sometimes just to do the returning than spend your life cowering away, weeks and months ticking by like this, not as if there weren’t epidemics then too, the original inhabitants, but they got on with it, didn’t they, people died and they were sad but they didn’t wall themselves up, they didn’t stop educating the children and forbid music, the living were allowed to live if you can call it that, Victorian mining, not that they lived long but maybe length isn’t how you want to measure it.”

Through characters like Kate and Alice, her elderly neighbour, Moss intelligently explores the varying nuances of experience during the pandemic. Their perspectives are multiplicitous. They understand the need for a lockdown and masks and social distancing, but they’re still frustrated by it. They know why regulations are in place, but they still criticise the messaging used by lawmakers and the media.

That was one aspect of the novel which I particularly enjoyed. Moss’ reflections on the language of the pandemic, phrases like ‘social distancing’ picked apart for their nonsensical nature. Looking back at the book now, especially since hearing the revelations of Downing Street ‘work events’, her characters’ critique of certain rules hits hard. The author exposes the stupidity of bans on walking, mentioning how the police flew drones and spent countless hours chasing people back indoors with the threat of fines or arrests. The Peak District setting makes the plot particularly poignant – these characters have an affinity with the natural world, and their lives completely change when that’s taken away from them.

As well as exploring one community’s experience of pandemic life, The Fell also celebrates the camaraderie, friendship and compassion witnessed throughout. As much as it is a criticism of transient rules and our desperation to break them, it is also a testament to the relationships that pulled us through. Neighbours support each other, both practically and emotionally, and even during their worst moments, the community pulls together for survival.

Sarah Moss is a champion of a writer. If you loved the dark and powerful narratives of Ghost Wall and Summerwater, you’re bound to enjoy the latest in her unmissable lineup.

The Fell was published by Picador in 2021, and you can purchase it here.

Words: Beth Barker

Beth Barker is a writer and blogger from Blackpool, now working in Manchester. She also co-hosts Up North Books, a podcast celebrating books and writers from the North of England.

For more book reviews and insights on publishing in the North, follow Beth on Instagram and Twitter.

True Crime, Trauma and Hope: Girl A by Abigail Dean

Abigail Dean’s Girl A is set to be one of the biggest books of 2021, a prediction that can be concluded as completely well-deserved upon reading it.

The story is narrated by Lex Gracie, better known as the girl who escaped from the House of Horrors, a location of crime made infamous by headlines in the novel. Lex and her six siblings were victims of abuse, held hostage and starved, a fact made even more harrowing when the perpetrators are revealed to be their own parents. Now a lawyer in New York, she is faced with the death of her imprisoned mother and the house left behind in the UK, forcing her to reconnect with her siblings and come to terms with the childhood they shared. Through a carefully-crafted and weaving narrative, Lex tells the story of her escape, her suffering and the way such trauma and abuse is processed.

A key element of Girl A which makes it stand out amongst other books of similar content is Dean’s effort to avoid explicit reference to the abuse itself, a refreshing take which allowed more thoughtful reflection and at times, a more focused reading experience. In an interview with The Bookseller, Dean explained her interest in writing a book that ‘deals less with the intricate details of the terrible things that do happen, and more with how trauma is processed’.

This intention definitely came to fruition in the novel. Lex’s position as narrator allowed a reading journey reminiscent of any real crime story; outsiders can never possibly understand the experience of victimhood in its entirety. The narrator often felt cold and distant but also at times tender and intimate, marking a successful attempt by the author to demonstrate how trauma and recovery often manifests itself. This process reaches climatic heights in the novel’s powerful twist, both unexpected and completely brilliant.

Part of Dean’s inspiration for the book originates from a true crime story traced back to the Turpin family, California. The case saw a couple charged for imprisoning their children and subjecting them to a cascade of neglect and abuse, only discovered after the escape of their seventeen year-old daughter.

The links between Girl A and the Turpin case are stark, injecting Dean into a tradition of writers using true crime to inspire fiction, some notable examples also from the North of England include David Peace’s 1980 and Pat Barker’s Blow Your House Down. Both of these authors took true crime stories and utilised them as inspiration for iconic literary fiction — Dean could well be on the path to joining them with her intensely compelling debut novel.

If Girl A could only be summarised by one word, that word should be hope. The author builds a story full of characters who feel alive, pulsing with real feelings and experiences. Their reactions, dialogue and personalities all contribute to an overwhelming achievement in terms of characterisation, something which is often missed out on when horrendous crimes are allowed to take centre stage. The relationships in the novel were particularly absorbing, especially when childhood rivalries and loving bonds were tested between the siblings. Hope is at the forefront, despite the memories of pain, and it is definitely a testament to the strength of victims everywhere who have experienced such abuse.

As far as debut novels go, this one is an absolute accomplishment. Combining true crime, trauma and proof of hope, Girl A is as memorable as it is captivating.

Abigail Dean is a lawyer and author, born in Manchester and raised in the Peak District. You can buy her novel now, available here.

Words: Beth Barker

Beth Barker is a writer and blogger from Blackpool, now working in Manchester. She also co-hosts Up North Books, a podcast celebrating books and writers from the North of England.

For more book reviews and insights on publishing in the North, follow Beth on Instagram and Twitter.