Salaam, with love - A refreshingly sweet self-discovery journey (Book Review)

I'll like to believe I'm completely out of my book slump or I'm halfway there, considering I've been able to read three books throughout this month. Although it currently feels like pulling myself out of this book slump wasn't completely necessary as I have exams fast approaching and soon, I'll have to dedicate 95% of my time to reading academic books. But for now, we keep going with the flow, till our academic demands it.

Salaam with Love, by Sarah Sharaf Beg is a book I picked up on a boring afternoon and because it everything about it seemed so cute, I knew I wasn't going to stop it till I got to the ending.

Set in Pakistan, the story follows a girl named Dua who is finding it a struggle to keep up with her religious traditions. When her parents inform her about their plans for the whole family to spend the 30days of Ramadan fasting at her uncle's place, she is distraught. For an only child, she already believes it's going to be hassle to live with seven other people in the same house. Not to talk of the fact that they are devout Muslims and she barely meets up with her five prayers of the day. However, they go on the trip and to Dua's surprise, the trip ends up being a journey of self discovery and of course, love.

This is my second Muslim romance and coupled with the fact that I've read a lot of christian romances over the years, I can happily say that romance stories centered around religion now has my heart once again. Because what in the name of cuteness was everything I read here? After so many years of being obsessed with very intense love stories, I'm finally back to where I started from. Love stories where on first meet, our protagonists are too shy to maintain eye contact and not those where they literally undress each other on first meet. So yes, I must say it felt so good to be back. Refreshing even.

Yes, this story was predictable from the start. We knew our main character was going to end up with her love interest but it was a case of wanting to know how they went about it. You see, their chances of being together was very bleak and since their faith made it harder for them to court each other like they wanted, that made it more enjoyable for me. It was a simple story of our main character finding herself and exploring sides to her relationship with people , she never knew existed.

Okay, I think I already made it seem like the book was all about love but I assure you it wasn't. The love story was just about thirty percent of the themes explored in this book. It actually focused more on our self-discovery, friendship and being a better Muslim. This was the perfect book for me to read, at the time I read it because before it, I had read a book that left me feeling devastated, which I'll be reviewing later. And with how this book focused on themes like friendship, religion, love, I was very happy with reading it.

Our main character though, wasn't such a. delight. She was just giving the vibe of a character an author pushed too much. There were situations that happened naturally and she'll begin to blame herself that she was the reason, just because she forgot to pray about that thing. It became too much that at some point, I got tired. Also, for someone who said she's been described as socially inept all her life, she kept on talking a lot even after her friendly advances were rebuffed. After some time, I began to see her as a pick-me. And it didn't help that the book was written in her POV. I'm glad the love interest was different. A not too hot type of guy. To be honest, I'm becoming tired of our main leads being either blue eyed or nothing, 6ft or nothing, company owners or nothing. It's okay to be 5ft. It's okay for their eyes to be brown. It's fine. Fictional characters are created in the likeness of humans, so it's okay for them to be flawed.

Aside the main character's personality, I enjoyed every other thing. The character development was implemented masterfully and there weren't any complex characters. I loved how subtle the themes were and I think that aided in me finishing early. I love love loved the ending. The proposal was everything. It was so cute, it had me giggling and squealing and throwing my legs in the air because I wasn't expecting that level of romanticism from him.

I enjoyed this book and I'll definitely rate it a 7.5/10. Lesser points due to our main character owning all POVs. It was a worthy read and I absolutely enjoyed. You're welcome to check this one out. A light read for a stressful day. I enjoyed it and I do hope if you pick it up, you would too. Happy weekend.

Thanks for reading

Image is a screenshot from my e-library.

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