The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters

By: Nadiya Hussain, Aasiya Shah

Narrated by: Avita Jay, Anjli Mohindra, Maya Saroya, Aasiya Shah

Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Fatima, Farah, Bubblee and Mae, the four sisters of the Amir family, are sometimes tired of being the only Muslim young women in a rural British village, not helped by their eccentric neighbours, including the hippie nudists next door.

Oldest sister Fatima - or, as her family have always nicknamed her, Fatti (which, she worryingly suspects, has just as much to do with her inability to lose weight and guilty-pleasure love of Primula squeezy cheese as it does her birth name) - is having a particularly hard time finding her place in the world, especially when a family tragedy strikes and Fatima discovers that she was adopted. Her aunt in Bangladesh is her real mother, leaving Fatima questioning everything she thought she knew about her family.

As each sister struggles with life, love and faith, as Farah learns to cope when her husband has an accident, Bubblee learns to stop judging other people's lives and Mae faces burgeoning YouTube stardom, Fatima learns what it really means to be a big sister and to bring her family back together by organising a big village bake sale to help fund rebuilding the family business.

©2017 Nadiya Hussain (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Feel good read

This was a pleasant read, I enjoyed spending time with the Amir sisters and the whole family

Unexpected Ending

What I loved about this, was it was read by a number of people, making the story come alive. For me each part of the story was an unexpected twist. Everytime I though I knew what was going to happen, something different happened. The book also gave me a bit of an education on how other cultures handle internal family matters. However, at the same time I realized that I actually knew a person who went through the same family situation. Sometimes the more we think we are different the more we actually have similarities.

Not bad for first novel

I really enjoyed Nadiyas first novel in the Amir Sister novels and I will be continuing. I found it a Little difficult to follow the different storylines but they came together in the end however the end was unexpected and a bit gloomy I felt. Performance was fantastic well done girls !!!

excellent read

quirky family; but like most, strong female characters; narrators really brought the family to life; did not want it to end!

easy to follow

this family was lovable and eat to follow. I wanted to listen for what comes next

Great read!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Mae. Even though she was probably the most annoying at the start of the book, and even though she kept doing those same things that were just as annoying later on, seeing things from her point of view really changed the context over time. She held the family together behind the scenes, breaking rules, keeping in touch with people who were excommunicated and otherwise pulling strings to make things happen, and she sincerely didn't expect anything back.

I also thought her character was especially vividly written, she reminds me of a few people I know. The author was really good at turning around your perception of a character naturally, without making it seem forced or making anyone automatically the hero, their roles all shifted and just kind of fell into place.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Everything! This was a great performance, the characters came to life. The different narrators seemed natural with the different perspectives, they even smoothed over the chapter transitions that I normally find kind of jarring in books that have a lot of switching back and forth. I always knew which character was talking right away, and they all had a lot of personality.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Maybe not exactly a moment, but a situation, when Farah and Bubblee eventually reconciled with each other over sorting bills and tidying the house. There wasn't ever really a grand scene to resolve everything with "I'm so sorry I was wrong all along" or anything like that, they were still upset and annoyed with each other. But they just kept coming back time and again, and working together while they bickered over things, and gradually got close enough to talk to each other again.

Even though it was imperfect and messy, it eventually worked itself out with time and effort, and it felt very real. I wish there were more movies set up like this, then we might have less ridiculous expectations of our relationships.

Any additional comments?

I hope the author keeps writing, I really want to read more of her books!

Worth It

I couldn't get enough of this book! Listen to it now! You won't regret it.