I never knew this book was going to be so deep when I read the blurb. When I told myself to read more realistic/historical fiction, I never imagined it would be so depressing. This book shows what true loss is, not just death, but loss of home, faith, but most importantly, identity.
The main characters, Najmah (Star) a Muslim by birth and Elaine (Nusrat) a Muslim by conversion. Najmah losses her family in a raid about a month after the WTC fell down, now must make something of herself and embarks on a long difficult journey to look for her father and bother who might just have survived. The story of Nusrat is entirely different,nothing that you would imagine it to be. Born American, she has always needed answers to questions that none could answer, but she found answers and comfort in Islam, something she had never truly had. She marries a Afghan doctor and moves with him back to Afghanistan. Shortly afterward he goes to Pakistan and sets up a clinic. Then shortly afterward a bomb is dropped on the village and he is killed, but news of this doesn't reach Nusrat for a really long time of the incident. Both women try to find themselves while clinging desperately onto a slight slimmer of hope.
These meet by fate. Nusrat runs a refugee school and Najmah is delivered to her. Nusrat helps her break her silence and the two find peace and hope in each other. The two become their new family.
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