Good People
Good People ~ Patmeena Sabit
The Sharaf family are an immigrant success story. The parents came to the US from Afghanistan and settled in Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC, and through intelligence and hard work, became extremely wealthy. Rahmat is a successful businessman, and Maryam is his wife and stay at home mother to their four children.
The parents have dreams that their eldest son, Omer, will be a world class surgeon, but he has other plans and doesn’t even want to go to community college. Now the dreams are pinned to their teenaged daughter, Zorah, becoming a lawyer. Zorah is an excellent student, and straddles the fine line between her American friends, school, and culture, and the much more rigid and traditional upbringing at the hands of her parents. She starts to rebel, her grades suffer, she has a boyfriend. The family goes on a quick vacation to Niagara Falls, and after a tragic accident, Zorah’s body is pulled from their submerged car.
Good People is told in a True Crime format, interviewing neighbors, friends, schoolmates, reporters, on and on. The people we never hear from are the Sharafs.
I don’t want to go into too much detail with this one, because I went in remembering nothing (not where I heard about it, not what it was about), and I think that is a good way to approach it. Excellently done, and highly recommended.
28 Comments
StephLove
I looked at the Goodreads entry for this book and it turns out there’s a giveaway, so I entered.
J
Oh, I hope you win!
ernie
Yowza. This sounds intense, and un-put-downable. Thanks for sharing it here.
J
It started off a little slow, but once it got going, yeah, totally binge worthy.
Jacquie
Oh, I just picked this up yesterday and am about 50 pages in!! I like the interview format and am interested to see where the story goes. I’m glad you’ve given it a good recommendation!
J
I hope you enjoy it!
Michelle G.
This one sounds exciting! I’m listening to Gray After Dark right now, which you recommended, and I’m on the edge of my seat!
J
That was a good one too!
Lisa's Yarns
I’m reading this next after my current read (Whistler which is excellent!!).
J
I’m reading Whistler right now too! So far really good.
Diane
Oh this sounds like it would be good on audio! I’m always looking for more audiobooks for my commute!
J
I listened to it on audio, and that was the perfect medium for me. They have a large cast of actors for the different characters.
Suzanne
This sounds really good – and I love a book that is better when you don’t know much about it.
I recently read The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin and I really enjoyed it. I think you would like it if you haven’t read it already.
J
Thanks for the tip! I just checked and it’s available NOW at my library, but I already have 2 audiobooks out and it is making me stressed, so I put it on my TBR. (I know I will finish my 2 books by the time my loans expire, so it makes no sense that I am stressed, but I am who I am.)
Nicole MacPherson
I completely skipped over what you wrote about (although I’m sure you didn’t include spoilers) because I have been in the queue for this and I’m dying to get to it!
J
No spoilers, but I love going into a book knowing NOTHING, so I’m glad you skipped it anyway!
Tamara
Ooh, this sounds interesting. On the surface it sounds a little like Celeste Ng’s Everything I never told you. I didn’t love that book but I like stories about immigrant families. I’ll keep an eye out for this one.
J
There is a lot about the cultural differences and how they affect the relationship between the immigrant parents and their American children. I think you’ll like it.
Stephany
I finished this book recently and really liked it, too. It was such an interesting way to tell a story! It was probably EXCELLENT on audio, too.
J
So good on audio!
Jenny
I’ve heard really good things about this one! I’ll definitely read it at some point… right now I’m still making my way through the last stack of books I got from the library.
J
I love a good pile of books!
PocoBrat
Glad you approve. I’m in line for this one, can’t wait!
J
I hope you like it!
NGS
Oh, I adored this book. I am glad you read it because I have so many questions I want to ask you. Don’t be surprised if you get peppered with texts from me once I get off work today!
J
We can have a little book club chat!
Allison McCaskill
I did my usual thing where I went “Oh! Julie’s blogging about good people, how lovely” and then even before the post opened I thought “no, it’s going to be a book titled Good People”. I’m learning! Sort of!
J
LOL, you’re learning for sure!