A Muslim romcom novel centred on a North London woman working for her local council and trying to find The One before her mum does? That appealed to me on the NetGalley site and I was happy to receive it. I’ve got a little ahead of myself with my reviewing as this one isn’t out for a few days yet, but you’ll be able to get hold of it soon.

A good read although there were maybe some issues with the editors wanting the author to add details that distracted slightly.

Tasneem Abdur-Rashid – “Finding Mr Perfectly Fine”

(6 May 2022, NetGalley)

Zara’s 29 and she decides to put all her energies into finding a husband before she turns 30, fearful her mum will select one for her. Mum’s on the case already, enlisting the world of the scary aunties we know so well from so many other novels, and sharing biodata sheets, while Zara embarks upon the world of apps and matchmaking events disguised as networking events and the like. Or maybe she’ll just meet someone in the run of her ordinary life …

Zara soon meets Hamza, a kind and jolly Egyptian man who shares many of her values, the poor man being questioned several times on all sorts of details. There’s just one problem: there’s not that spark. He’s also a bit controlling, although this seems to be put in to give more reason to not like him than as a real red flag, which I found a bit confusing. Then there’s an annoying man who rubs her up the wrong way – there IS a spark, but he’s totally unsuitable. As an undertone to all of this we have the horrible way her last relationship went, and a lot of unpleasant misogyny from various prospective suitors, ranging from insult to assault.

Zara’s from a Bengali background and from this comes something I don’t think I’ve seen in other books about young Muslim women: she doesn’t date or hang out with non-Muslim or White guys, but she does interact with an Egyptian and a Turkish Muslim and in both cases encounters the differences in their cultures and how they practise their mutual religion: this is really interesting and the best part of the book for me where they negotiate their differences and similarities (there’s a very sweet bit where an Arabic family choose a Pakistani restaurant for the Bangladeshi family and can’t cope with the spices).

Something I found a bit tricky, and it looks like Muslim / Bengali reviewers on NetGalley have found this, too, is the over-explaining, which makes it feel like the book’s written – or has been tweaked – for a White/non-Muslim readership. Yet the author explains in her Afterword that she wanted to write the book giving her representation that she wasn’t able to find herself in her extensive novel-reading. Bengali words are passed over without comment or loosely translated, the names of the five prayers are parsed, which is kind of understandable, but then at one point we have an explanation of what Ramadan is, which surely I would be expected to know or at least look up. I know this is probably in an aim of being accessible and getting a wider readership, but from reading blogs by Black and South Asian readers I’m aware that over-explanation can alienate them, and as a White, non-Muslim reader who does read quite diversely, I’ll admit, it distracts me out of the story, too.

[Edited to add: after discussion with my friend Leila, who I very much respect and who knows more about GMP publishing in the UK than I do, I retract some of this. Personally I do find it a bit jarring, but as she pointed out, maybe not all readers are in a very multicultural city and have read a lot of different books like I have and maybe a reader in a less-diverse area might not know about these concepts. There is an interplay between audiences here, too, given that publishers want to sell books and so books in this category do need to appeal to the larger White audience to get the sales – apparently 78.4% of the British population identify as White British so that’s a large audience not to get. I suspect the solution is our friend the glossary, so people can choose to look things up or not. But I’ll be more accepting of explaining in future.]

This was an attractive and well-done novel. I liked Zara’s sisters and friends and her feisty mum, and where others have disliked the ending, I thought it was believable and loved Zara’s growth in confidence and self-worth. I’ll definitely look out for more by this author.

Thank you to Zaffre / Bonnier Books for selecting me to read this book in return for an honest review. “Finding Mr Perfectly Fine” is published on 21 July 2022.

In a Bookish Beck Book Serendipity moment, both this and “Harish Hope” feature a home backer whose cakes are so good they should feature in a cafe – and might end up doing so!