Author – Mohsin Hamid , Rating – 2.5/5

The narrative makes you feel like part of a conversation, part of a setting that is highly captivating even while being complex, which you just don’t want to peel yourself away from.In a cafe in Lahore, Pakistan, the main character Changez tells an American acquaintance his life story and it is by “overhearing” this second-person telling that we learn it, too. Changez goes to America at 18 to attend Princeton, moves to New York after college to work in finance, falls in love with an NYC high society young woman, Erica, and all in all seems destined to ride the American dream into adulthood. Then 9/11 happens, Erica in fact is still in love with her recently-deceased boyfriend, Pakistan/India tensions rattle Changez and implant doubts about his true allegiances…and his relationships with both Erica and America — two things he thought he loved — slowly unravel.

My criticisms of The Reluctant Fundamentalist are a testament to its genuinely provocative nature, and it remains, at the very least, an intelligent, highly engaging piece of work ,unsettling and provocative, this is indeed a novel of our times.There’s undoubtedly a great novel waiting to be written out of the anguished material of these kinds of east/west encounters. This book may not be it, but its author (who won a Betty Trask award for his first novel, Moth Smoke) certainly has the potential to write it.Whether you love or hate the book, it’s going to be one that you’ll be glad you read.

Thank you @Noir_Mask for gifting me this one 🙂