While Nur is a character I constantly disliked there was raw honesty in his depiction which is rarely shown in writing, especially that told through the eyes on a British Pakistani man. it just made me feel a little bored, as i waited to read about the plot of what was currently happening.

But Nur's announcement has been long-delayed, and it feels guilty and furtive and fraught, an occasion for anxiety rather than joy. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. If I can remember correctly, Nur or Yasmina acknowledge they don't practice Islam as much as they should, but after that was mentioned, it was never showcased again so. His mother, Hina, pats the seat on the sofa next to her, and Nur takes it, his father, Mahmoud, on the other side of him, and all sat there like that, they might strike an onlooker as the right kind of family. I can see that this book will be popular with some readers but it just didn't do it for me this time.I simply think that this book should have uncovered Nur’s internalized racism more than probing on his lack of initiative for marriage. It's heartbreaking to watch Yasmina, a bright, dedicated, and loving girlfriend, suffer through a debilitating four years of growing self-doubt and worthlessness over the way that Nur treats her. In Good Intentions, Kasim Ali not only lays bare the sweetness and nerves of first love, but also levels an unflinching gaze on the prejudices and racism within minority communities. Even though sometimes I get sad about how the publishing industry is still so overwhelmingly white (which sometimes I forget because folks like you and I make an effort to read books by people of color), I can feel a little more hopeful reading reviews about books like this one.

As Ali tackles the difficulty of racism within ethnic groups tied to assumptions of solidarity, he succinctly delineates memorable characters and complex interactions . They share the same nose, he and his mother; the same curve leaping downward, as if gravity had grabbed on to it with both hands.To start with the positive, I liked the premise of this novel - a modern, contemporary examination of a relationship that has themes of religion, race, family obligations and mental health issues at the heart of it. After about 50% of the story, I did become invested in the character, mainly Nur, and how his family may react to his relationship. Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Initially, Nur thought he was protecting Yasmina (his own Good Intentions) from his family whom he thought wouldn't accept her, but he ended up hurting Yasmina and even his family. He keeps their relationship a secret from his parents for years because he worries about their acceptance; Nur is Pakastani and Yasmina is Sudanese.