Having read the book ‘Shame’ by Jasvinder Sanghera last year, when I saw this in the library I got a little excited.  While ‘Shame’ was brilliantly written and genuinely moving, I’m afraid the same cannot be said for ‘Disgraced’.  While both are true stories relating to the issue of arranged marriage they are definitely varied in quality and quantity.  The reason for my excitement was that this was the story of a Muslim British Asian, someone that I could possibly relate to, but I found myself questioning whether the author actually knew what they were writing about.

‘Disgraced’ begins in the first chapter with Saira telling the reader about the concepts of Halal and Haram, this automatically makes me assume that the story is more about religion than culture and that the concepts of Halal - what is allowed - and Haram - what is forbidden - will be a recurring theme throughout the book.  However, I find myself reading more about Haram than Halal and with no real justification for why the two concepts were introduced to begin with. My initial assumption had been that the author had to do something she considered Haram, which she did, but she would leave the reader with some sort of lesson due to her experiences. It felt completely lesson less, like you were reading it just for the sake of reading it and getting nothing real out of the book.

My main issue with this book is the authors confusion over what is religion and what is culture.  She talks about coming from a strict Muslim family.  Any truly strict Muslim family would not force their daughter into a marriage, in fact forced marriage is forbidden in Islam.  She also goes on to talk about how her brothers become involved in drugs, and in the words of Immortal Technique, ‘Heroin is not compatible with Islam’.  This issue of confusing culture and religion is common in many Muslim families of Pakistani or Indian origin.  Personally I find myself questioning some of the things that are said and trying to determine if they are actually religion based or culture that has been described as religion for so long that people mistake it for being religion.

The actual storytelling was very selective, in my opinion.  It wasn’t even a case of giving the reader just the important points, it was like the author expected you to have some prior knowledge of her life.  You hear a lot about one of her brothers but the other is almost forgotten, his name thrown in every now and then, leaving you with questions of why he hasn’t been mentioned.  While we’re clearly aware of the issues her parents have with her older brother, Ali, we don’t know the extent of the problems with the younger brother.  Surely giving more information about him would only have added to the strength of the story.

The final point I want to make is about the way the book ends.  The feeling of abruptness leaves you feeling like the author has let you put one foot into her door and then decided to throw you out and slam the door in your face.  It felt to me like a half finished book and certainly not one that I’ll be re-reading.  It’s a shame really because British Asian literature is so scarce that when you find something new you hope that it’ll be life changing.  It’s so much worse when it’s a let down because of this.