These Impossible Things
An unforgettable story of love and friendship
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
'Captures the fierceness of female friendship' BETH O'LEARY | 'The essential book on sisterhood' NIKITA GILL
Shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards 2023
Three women. One life-changing friendship. One chance to stop it all falling apart . . .
Jenna, Kees and Malak have been friends for years: the three of them together against the world. But when one night changes everything, they're left adrift from one another as their lives take different paths.
Encountering new milestones and heartbreaks without each other's support feels increasingly difficult--in the wake of heartbreaks, marriages, new careers and new beginnings, they need each other more than ever. Will they be able to forgive each other in time?
These Impossible Things tells the story of three British Muslim women reconciling love, loss, womanhood, faith and how we navigate the bumps in life that can feel impossible to overcome.
READERS LOVE THESE IMPOSSIBLE THINGS
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Absolutely loved it and couldn't bear to put it down!'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This book has left me speechless'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'A cross-cultural celebration of friendship, without being saccharine and clichéd'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'I genuinely do not know what I will read next because I wonder what else might make me feel as seen and understood as these pages'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
El-Wardany's entertaining debut follows the romantic relationships of three Muslim women living in London in the early 2010s. Ever since Kees, Malak, and Jenna met in weekend Islamic school, they've shared a tight friendship grounded in religion. Now in their 20s, the trio remain close and primarily date non-Muslim men, despite their families' expectations that they should marry within the faith. After Malak's white, agnostic boyfriend realizes Malak will never be able to tell her parents about their relationship, they break up. A heartbroken Malak then vindictively tells Kees that Kees's relationship with Harry, a white man, also won't last. Tempers flare and the fight creates a lasting rift. The three go their separate ways: Malak moves to Cairo, where she dates a seemingly perfect Muslim man; Kees gets a job as an attorney, but her relationship with Harry becomes increasingly strained; and Jenna represses her loneliness with reckless casual hookups. As the months pass and the trio's romantic lives become increasingly tumultuous, they come to recognize the value of the friendship they once shared. The complex characters are well observed and the prose is often moving: "Although the breakup was mutual, it was an unexpected specter, slipping quietly unnoticed through the door." Fresh, witty, and insightful, this is an auspicious start. Florence Rees, AM Heath Literary.
