international bestselling author of The Flatshare Beth O'Leary
I can't remember the last time a book consumed me like this. I truly, truly loved it. It's so beautifully written, full of warmth and love and insight; Malak, Kees and Jenna stole into my heart and stayed there. This novel captures the fierceness of female friendship better than anything I've ever read. It is a book I know I will still be thinking about for many years to come.
New York Times bestselling author of The Push Ashley Audrain
"These Impossible Things is an addictive portrait of three Muslim friends moving through a pivotal time in womanhood, caught between expectation and possibility, hungry to earn wisdom of their own. Salma El-Wardany deftly reveals searing and poignant truths about the female experience, ones so rarely confronted in fiction. What a gift to be inside this author’s mind through the pages of her beautiful and memorable writing.
bestselling author of bone and The How Yrsa Daley-Ward
Moving, telling, glorious; girlhood giving way to something urgent and beginning. This is a bracing, tender exploration of friendship, family and faith and their gaping complications. Irresistible.
From the Publisher
The complex characters are well observed and the prose is often moving... Fresh, witty, and insightful, this is an auspicious start."
—Publishers Weekly
activist and bestselling author of Read This to Ge Blair Imani
Salacious, incisive, and unapologetically Muslim, Salma El-Wardany’s bold and brilliant story doesn’t shy away from the taboo subjects of religion and sex. These Impossible Things shows that Muslim women are multifaceted and complex despite the dearth of representation we are allowed.
Kirkus
Sparkling, incisive debut… While frothy and chatty, with witty dialogue and plenty of weddings and other gatherings that spark interactions among the characters, the book doesn't shy away from more serious issues... This novel is blessed by a light touch and evenhanded treatment of its two generations of characters.
poet and author of Wild Embers Nikita Gill
This is the essential book on sisterhood that I needed to read. Beautifully written and gorgeous, Salma El-Wardany is a brilliant writer and this is a story I will never forget.
Library Journal
A fun, witty, sharply observant work.
Kirkus Reviews
2022-03-30
El-Wardany’s sparkling, incisive debut uses the conventions of romantic comedy to explore the social and personal tensions faced by young Muslim women in contemporary Britain.
In London in the early 2000s, three lifelong friends are about to graduate from university and have to make decisions about their professional and—more importantly, from this novel’s point of view—personal lives. Jenna, a medical student from a British Palestinian family, juggles boyfriends with an eye on finally marrying an appropriate Muslim until an assault leaves her depressed and willing to settle for someone she doesn’t truly love. Malak, whose family is Egyptian and who doesn't know exactly what she wants to do with her life, loves Jacob but breaks up with him because he isn’t Muslim and she knows her family will never approve. When she moves temporarily to Egypt, she meets Ali, a British Muslim who seems perfect at first but later reveals a cruel side. Bilquis, known as Kees, whose family is Pakistani and who’s in love with Catholic Harry, makes the opposite decision: She decides to stay with him and is shunned by her family. The choices Malak and Kees make lead to their estrangement, with Jenna caught in the middle until a crisis reunites the three. While the novel’s male characters aren’t as well developed, often being either too good or evil to be believable, the three young women and their family members are complex and engaging, while the decisions they make, and often reconsider, are rooted in realistic cultural and emotional pressures. While frothy and chatty, with witty dialogue and plenty of weddings and other gatherings that spark interactions among the characters, the book doesn't shy away from more serious issues, including rape, domestic violence, and unwanted pregnancy.
This novel is blessed by a light touch and evenhanded treatment of its two generations of characters.
