Chaudhry’s memoir traces her family’s roots in Pakistan and her parent’s two-ing and froying from Canada as they try and assimilate into the white western settler environment. Ultimately they (rightfully) reject, assimilation. They choose instead to align with fundamental Islam and a puritanical view of a religious life. From her she regales stories of wearing niqab, interacting with white feminists who want to ‘free her’ and men who want to take advantage.

Woven throughout are Quranic verses, historic retelling and present-day stories, combined it is compulsively readable in tone, reminding me the memoir can teach much more than a family history.

Most notable was her smart look at patriarchal systems in both her fundamentalist Islamic upbringing and white western culture, she’s clear on that. Patriarchy has infiltrated almost all facets of human existence, it is impossible to escape and is not inherent to one religion or group. It must be abolished as a collective. Her writing shines with humility as she delves into her own mistakes and looks back on a life that feels like many.

It is a book of multitudes, simultaneously Chandhry interrogates her position as a woman, a daughter of immigrants, a sister of a grieving sibling, a member of Islam, a wife of a Muslim man. Here she is, case and point, demonstrating why we must take each story as a singular and each person as an individual. There is no us and them.