First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

In the dying days of a brutal civil war in Bangladesh, Sohail Haque stumbles upon an abandoned building. Inside he finds a young woman whose story will haunt him for a lifetime to come.

Almost a decade later, Sohail’s sister, Maya, returns home after a long absence to find her beloved brother transformed. While Maya has stuck to her revolutionary ideals, Sohail has shunned his old life to become a charismatic religious leader. And when Sohail decides to send his son to a madrasa, the conflict between brother and sister comes to a devastating climax.

The Good Muslim is an epi about faith, family, the rise of religious fundamentalism, and the long shadow of war from prizewinning Bangladeshi novelist Tahmima Anam.

After five days at the office, it is finally the weekend! I hope everyone is ending the work week on a high note. I hope everyone was able to accomplish everything they had to accomplish. I hope it went well for everyone, else, I hope that you will spend the weekend recovering or finding your groove back. It is now time to dress down. Ditch those corporate attires and don some comfortable articles of clothing. Today is also the last day of the sixth month of the year. Woah. It is already July! We are nearly midway through the year. I hope that the year has been kind to everyone. Else, I hope that you experience a reversal of fortune in the coming months. More importantly, I hope that everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit.

But before I can wave goodbye both to June and the workweek, I will be sharing a fresh First Impression Friday update. I am currently in the midst of a literary journey across Asia. The journey has been riveting. This journey took me to China (Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum), South Korea (Han Kang’s Greek Lessons), the Philippines (Ninotchka Roska’s State of War), India (Deepti Kapoor’s Age of Vice, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die, and Dipika Rai’s Someone Else’s Garden), and Pakistan (Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist). Earlier today, I finished reading my second novel by popular South Korean writer Kyung-Sook Shin.

From East Asia, I then traveled back to South Asia. As soon as I completed reading Shin’s Violets, I immediately started reading Tahmima Anam’s The Good Muslim. This is going to be my first foray into the work of a Bangladeshi writer. The Good Muslim was one of those books I randomly purchased. I didn’t have any iota on what it was about nor have I ever heard about Anam. But hey, I am always up for a literary adventure. I haven’t really gotten that far into the story. I just completed nineteen out of its nearly 300 pages.

Nevertheless, there is a lot I am looking forward to in the story. First off, the story started during the twilight years of the Bangladeshi civil war. I must admit that I don’t have much of an idea about this civil war. As such, I am looking forward to learning more about this war and its impact on the denizens of Bangladesh. By extension, I am looking forward to learning more about Bangladesh. It is part of the world that I rarely read about; most of what I read about the South Asian country relates to its population and the partition. To Anam’s credit, the writing seems accessible so I don’t think I will be having a challenging time reading the book.

However, I am expecting it to be a little on the heavy side considering that the overriding theme is war. The horrors of wars are prevalent in contemporary literature but one never gets used to them, to their inhumanity, to the extent of their atrocities. I guess it is going to be a long weekend. How about you fellow reader? What book or books are you taking with you for the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy them. Again, happy weekend everyone!