Ayesha At Last

Ayesha At Last is described as a modern Muslim Pride and Prejudice, which is really all it takes to make me want to read a new book. Hardworking first-year teacher and aspiring poet Ayesha is constantly being reminded of all the proposals her pretty younger cousin Hafsa is getting. She lives at home, with her warm, loving and slightly lacking in boundaries family. Fortunately, she has her best friend Clara for support.

The romance is solid, of course, and obviously I loved wealthy Khalid falling in love with spirited Ayesha, but I found Clara and Ayesha’s friendship to be the most compelling part of this story. The two young women have different career paths, romantic goals, and values, but they offer each other kind support and real affection, since their school days. Women’s friendship can be a rich topic in fiction, and there’s a lot to explore in why we chose our besties and how we maintain those friendships with the competing pressures of career and family.  I particularly enjoyed the resolution of Clara and Rob’s storyline, because it showed old-fashioned respect for the institution of marriage, crossed with modern respect for women. There was also mutual respect and appreciation for differing marriage traditions.

Now, I don’t want to be an arbiter of what counts as Pride and Prej — wait, no, I absolutely do. That would be a great job, please hire me.  But any Elizabeth Bennet needs sisters, and this Elizabeth only has a little brother and dear cousin. Also, there’s no Bingley. This was just as much a modernized P&P as it was any Shakespearean hidden-identity comedy.

I don’t mean that I didn’t enjoy this book! No, it was a great read, after the misleading description.  It’s a Canadian/Indian Muslim romantic comedy, with nods to the bard’s twin comedies and Jane Austen. (Which would also have been really compelling logline for me.) The romantic plot hinges less on the classism of P&P and more on a mistaken identity in the style of Comedy of Errors or Twelfth Night. I often get those twin comedies confused, although I love the women-dressed-as-men romance polygons, especially how they straighten out for marriages by the end of the play.  There’s another nod to Shakespearean pairoffs in this novel when (the real) cousin Hafsa and self-obsessed “promoter” Collins fall for each other.

My only concern was finding the mean and racist boss Sheila too evil, there was no nuance or motivation here.  To me, a more insidious villain lets you know that they believe all the negative stereotypes of your ethnic group, but don’t worry, you’re not like the rest of them. Or someone who needs to be educated, over and over, about stereotypes. (Double jerk points for innocently insisting they’re just curious.) Meeting Khalid and immediately deciding to fire him seemed a bit flatly villainous to me. Fortunately, it put the more nuanced plot in motion, allowing us to see Khalid under pressure and testing his commitments.