Nikola Reviews A Sister To Honor By Lucy Ferriss Rating: An Excellent Read

A Sister To Honor by Lucy Ferriss is about Afia a Pakistan women from a strict family where customs and traditions are expected to be followed and obeyed with every generation.  Afia is the first women of her generation allowed to continue on to higher education. Instead of marrying first, which is her families expectations. Afia joins her brother Shahid in an opportunity to study abroad. Afia's father, with much reservation, allows Afia to go abroad and achieve her collegiate goals with strict expectations more specifically to remain separate from men.

This is a Romeo and Juliet story line that involves customs and traditions instead of bloodlines and family names.  A Sister To Honor has a plot that thickens as the story introduces multi-layered characters who slowly chip away at the progress that Afia attempts to make as a modern Pakistan women in a foreign society with social advances and opportunities.  In the story line you will learn of Afia's friend, a Pakistan women who tried to reach the same level of independence and unfortunately faced an unlucky fate of being limited by Pakistan expectations for  women.

Afia's brother Shahid faces different challenges as he tries to live up to family expectations, maintaining an athletic scholarship, managing both his personal and professional relationships, and looking out for his sister Afia to make sure she obeys her family wishes and stays out of trouble while away at college. However, in his strong attempt to do so, the issues of life and emotions of human nature such as love, ambition, control, jealousy, and defiance seep through in different ways in each of the characters causing an avalanche of Shahids efforts that end in a heartbreaking, sacrificial, defeating way, which alters their lives forever.

Last but not least, it's not a foreign concept to know that often it's the ones closest to you that try to hold you back as Afia will discover with her half brother Khalid who battles with jealous rage over his families treatment of him, and the favor and promise that is shown to Afia and Shahid.

This book was a page turner, which I also think should be turned into a coming of age film.  You will turn every page with anticipation and suspense.


If you enjoy this book:  Also check out A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini... I read this years ago with my sister and I could not put it down.

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Below are Nikola's Book Reviews Posted on Another Blog Feb 6th, 2017