Good Intentions, Kasim Ali
Good Intentions, Kasim Ali
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Good Intentions
A Novel

Author: Kasim Ali

Narrator: Nathaniel Curtis

Unabridged: 8 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/08/2022


Synopsis

"An unbelievably gorgeous debut."—Angie Kim, bestselling author of Miracle Creek

For fans of The Big Sick and Nick Hornby—a magnetic debut novel about a young man who has hidden a romance from his parents, unable to choose between familial obligation and the future he truly wants.

If love really is a choice, how do you decide where your loyalties lie?

It’s the countdown to the New Year, and Nur is steeling himself to tell his parents that he’s seeing someone. A young British Pakistani man, Nur has spent years omitting details about his personal life to maintain his image as the golden child. And it’s come at a cost.

Once, Nur was a restless college student, struggling to fit in. At a party, he meets Yasmina, a beautiful and self-possessed aspiring journalist. They start a conversation—first awkward, then absorbing. And as their relationship develops, so too does Nur’s self-destruction. He falls deeper into traps of his own making, attempting to please both Yasmina and his family until he must finally reveal the truth: Yasmina is Black, and he loves her.

Deftly transporting readers between that first night and the years beyond, Kasim Ali's Good Intentions exposes with unblinking authenticity the complexities of immigrant families and racial prejudice. It is a crackling, wryly clever depiction of standing on the precipice of adulthood, piecing together who it is you’re meant to be.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company.

About Kasim Ali

Kasim Ali works at Penguin Random House, has previously been short-listed for Hachette’s Mo Siewcharran Prize and long-listed for the 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, and has contributed to The Good Journal. He comes from Birmingham and lives in London. Good Intentions is Ali's first novel.


Reviews

Goodreads review by faatima

Kasim Ali is without a doubt the writer I have been desperate to encounter in the South Asian contemporary sphere. Good Intentions is a stunning debut willing to contend with the uglier realities of our culture without solely placing blame on a parental monolith, without refusing to question the cyc......more

Oh dear. I found this quite dull really. The protagonist was so self centred he spoiled the whole thing for me. Some of the banter between the characters was witty and realistic but not enough to save the book overall.......more