"When We Were Sisters" is one of the most beautiful works of literature I have read this year and a debut I am greatly excited about. Asghar seamlessly moves between stunning and evocative prose to lyrical free verse, which adds an element to reading this story that will only further immerse the reader.
The story follows three sisters, focussing on the youngest Kausar's point of view, as they grow up Muslim and orphaned in America. Each sister has a distinct personality and the book explores how each one deals with the loss, trauma, and obstacles they face because of their gender, religion, and ethnicity. Centering on sisterhood and the idea of family, the reader follows the sisters through Kausar's eyes and watches how family ties can be formed, broken, and made anew.
At times heartbreaking there is still hope and resilience at the center of this novel, and Asghar explores gender and sexuality within a Muslim American experience in an honest way.

While the writing style may not be for everyone, I urge readers who are hesitant to keep going! The writing is gorgeous and evocative, an incredible debut novel.

I love poets’ novels as a genre, if they count as a genre. The heightened attention to the beauty of each sentence and phrase, the associative grammar of the plot, and sometimes the exploding of what a chapter can look like—Fatimah Asghar's first novel has all these things. Stylistically, it reminds me a lot of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (and as with Vuong, I’d been a fan of Asghar’s poetry before I picked up the novel). It’s a coming-of-age tale for queer Asian youth, and its musings alternatively undulate and slice. Yet it would be unfair to compare it too closely to Vuong’s novel, as this one has a life of its own.

When We Were Sisters follows Kausar, the youngest of three Pakistani-American sisters who are orphaned at a young age, leaving an uncle whose name is always redacted in the text to be their official guardian. The uncle, separated from his white wife, aggressively tries to cordon the girls off from his life while proudly touting his generosity in keeping them from foster care. He places them in a separate apartment, eventually with no guardian. The girls have to be their own parents. Adolescence is rough enough as is—and these girls have to endure normal problems amidst the abuse of their uncle, plus 9/11 occurs mid-novel. In spite of this, the novel never feels too heavy, relishing in its beautiful language for faith, devotion, and hope. My only disappointment is that its flash-forward coda is a little short, and I would have liked a bit more closure for these characters—but perhaps closure is as elusive here as in real life.

The book was absolutely heartbreaking. I loved the lyrical style in which this book was told. I felt like I couldn't put it down. The style makes this book so captivating. There are such interesting themes of sisterhood, family, gender, race, religion, and ethnicity in this book.

3.5/5
This is such a heartbreaking and beautiful story. The writing is gorgeous and it flows just like poetry. Fatimah Asghar is a great writer.

This story is about 3 sisters after the death of their parents. They go to live with their unnamed uncle. It follows them as they start to grow up and want to make their own way into the world. A beautiful story about love and family. It does talk about heavy topics, so please check trigger warnings.

Thank you @netgalley for this ARC of When We We’re Sisters. It is a story of three sisters whose father dies and they have to go live with their uncle. One of the sisters is struggling with their identity and sexuality. The writing is poetic and beautiful. The story is sad and there is abuse.

Grief rocks the worlds of sisters Kausar, Aisha, and Noreen in Fatimah Asghar's debut novel "When We Were Sisters". Taken in by an estranged uncle, the sisters attempt to hold on to their sense of family throughout their teenage years but are torn apart by the fractures in their bond.

Kausar, the youngest, struggles with losing her parents and her relationship with her gender and sexual identity. Aisha, the middle sister, consistently spars with Kausar while trying to maintain their family structure. And Noreen, the eldest, must act as their mother while trying to carve her own place in the world. As the sisters age, they each grapple with their Muslim identity,

girlhood, and sense of family while deciding whether to maintain their codependency or create their own lives.
Asghar’s lyrical writing style is unlike any other––a mix of poetry, prose, and poignant narration that beautifully capture the struggles of growing up as a young Muslim woman in America. The rich––yet heart-wrenching––passages throughout the novel and poetic styling paint a collage of the Muslim-American lifestyle, Muslim teachings, and Kausar’s coming-of-age journey with lovely nuance. The narrative shifts from character to character for deeper analyses and the third-person, but most of the novel is told from Kausar’s point of view.

Although I don’t have any sisters, the depiction of sisterhood in this novel felt almost autobiographical from Asghar. Kausar’s experiences with puberty, high school, and navigating racism aren't generalized experiences of Islamophobia but detailed microaggressions. These passages will make readers (mainly non-Muslim ones) think twice about their biases and preconceived notions. I won’t spoil it, but some challenging scenes in “When We Were Sisters” centered around racism, Islamophobia, sexual assault, and gender.

Also, the sisters’ experiences with body image, the quintessential American culture, and sexuality are written with the tenderness of someone who has personally experienced them––so kudos to Asghar. She masterfully conveys the angst, loneliness, and love sisters share through the Muslim-American lens and doesn’t mince any feelings for political correctness.

As Kausar, Aisha, and Noreen grow up and evolve in their Muslim identity, the chasms between them widen until a pivotal scene in the novel bridges that gap. I can’t and won’t speak for the Muslim-American experience. Still, Asghar illuminates an underrepresented community in American society with extraordinary dexterity and grace.

Lyrically stunning and heart-wrenching, “When We Were Sisters” paints an experimental and gorgeous portrait of the young, Muslim-American experience and the bonds between sisters. A must-read for any readers looking for something fresh yet important to Muslim representation in publishing.

I finished this book with a pit in my stomach.

It has left me feeling sad, and as if something within me needs to be fixed. It's not because I can relate to the book, because I can't, really, apart from belonging to the same faith as the sisters. It's something else.

Maybe the language. The book flows like Asghar's previous one did, though that was a poetry anthology. It is lyrical and beautiful and is hard-hitting and soft at the same time.

Or maybe it was the story itself. Tragic, yet one about perseverance.

I would have loved to read on and on about Kausar. The sadness is partly due to my unresolved feelings about the protagonist.

Read it if you like lyrical fiction.

i really, really wanted to love this book but mostly it just made me sad and not rush back to reading it when i put it down, because it was so unrelenting sad.

Three sisters are orphaned and move in with their striving and inattentive uncle, while struggling with forced maturity, religion and love alone in a 1 bedroom apartment.

I struggled with the style- the cross out and omitted names and poetry chapters where i wasnt sure who was speaking made it hard for me to connect. Maybe that was intentional because of how isolated the narrator felt throughout the story, but as reader deserpately wanting to connect, it kept me at arms length.

Thanks net galley for letting me read and review this book. #netgalley

I wish there had been trigger warnings for sexual assault and other sensitive issues.
I won't be able to read and review this.
I apologize.

When We Were Sisters is a lyrical novel about the nature of grief as it reverberates through the life of Kausar and her sisters. It's a story of the abuse they survive when their unnamed uncle becomes their guardian after the deaths of their parents. In these beautiful and wildly experimental pages, Fatimah Asghar weaves a story that is part collage and part lyric and all gorgeous.

Though at times I wanted a little more heft -- at times the shifts in form and perspective seem to elide a deeper investigation of the story and characters -- overall this is a gorgeous debut novel and I cannot wait to read whatever Asghar writes next.

Thank you to One World and NetGalley for a free review copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to One World and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Available Oct 18.

Don't read this book unless you are utterly willing to have your heart stomped on. It is absolutely beautiful, moving tribute to the power of sisterhood and the many ways it saves us and the many ways it cuts our soul. When three sisters become orphans, they are forced to rely on each other like never before. Told in lyrical prose from the youngest sister's perspective, this unique coming of age is mired in violence, sexual, physical and emotional. It is dark and gritty, but there is a tenderness to the voice, a yearning, a romantic. Just an incredible mastery of the written word and the heart.

2.5/5

an urgent and poignant story. the author has poured a lot of themselves into this book, and it's visible from the emotional weight of kausar's narrative — i just wasn't enamored by the storytelling style, which is an opinion that ultimately came down to personal preference. asghar's writing is experimental, flitting in between prose and poetry, but their stylistic choices didn't quite resonate with me. their sentences are often like this. choppy, and strikingly emphatic. less stream-of-consciousness than chunks-of-consciousness. some readers might enjoy it. for me, it interrupted flow and focus.

with sparse dialogue and vignette-like snapshots of narrative, i found it sometimes difficult to keep myself attentive. the book is spent inside kausar's head, which isn't inherently a bad thing; i just think it was harder to parse the bond of sisterhood that is meant to take center stage of the story. the characters don't quite feel real to me because of the internal nature of asghar's narration, to the point where i think the book's craft hindered me from fully engaging with the novel. that being said, there are some powerful turns of phrase and tender interactions that paired well with asghar's writing, and its moving story of loss, alienation, and coming to terms with oneself is one that will no doubt be compelling for those who jive well with the book's style.

Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC! I will be leaving a longer review on my blog in the next few weeks, but for now, here’s a general compilation of my thoughts and feelings:

Likes:
-the format
-the heavy topics and how they were handled
-the structure and the use of tones throughout the narrator’s life
Dislikes;
-the “dual pov” (with kausar and (maybe??) her mother before she died)
-the pacing
-sometimes a little too ambiguous

Neutral/random thoughts:
-would’ve loved to know more context about what happened to Meemoo and Aunty

When We Were Sisters is one of my most anticipated reads of 2022 and it did not disappoint. As a fan of Fatimah Asghar, I was overcome with joy that the beauty of her lyrical poetry is very much present in her debut novel. This is the story of three sisters, orphaned when they were young who are raising themselves under the guise of an uncle who is barely present. The sisters, Norren, Aisha, and Kauser experience their coming of age journey while navigating the stressors of being unprotected and often neglected. They meet many different characters who have a role to play in their developmental journey along the way and end up taking three very different paths in their life. At the end of the story, the sisters reunite and the culmination of just how much is lost between them in the end is a heavy weight for the reader to process. At the same time, the bond between sisters remains present no matter how time much time has passed. If nothing else, grief bonds them and brings them back together.

The power of this story, for me, is that our narrator is Kauser, the youngest sister. Through Kauser's lens we witness the fragility and vulnerability of a child left to figure things out on her own. She begins the story optimistically sure that her sisters will be able to look out for her until she realizes that they can't even protect themselves.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the E-ARC copy of this stunning debut!

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy. I started out enjoying the story, but the plot and progression of abuse continued to get worse and worse for me. The writing style is wonderful, mixing poetry and points of view to build the emotions and fill in background information. There is profanity, sexually explicit scenes, and LGBTQ content that I was not expecting, either. The ending is not tragic, but it also does not feel fulfilling. Ultimately, I cannot recommend this book, not even for those suffering from neglect, abuse, or sexual assault, since it will be more disturbing than helpful.

Three sisters find themselves orphans and in the custody of their uncle. He collects the money that the state sends him and barely cares for the girls. Kausar, the youngest, and her sisters, Noreen and Aisha, must learn how to be in a world that does not always see orphans, especially female orphans. As they get older, the sisters start to forge their own paths, away from one another. Kausar struggles with all aspects her her identity: her gender, her sexuality, her Muslim identity, and her identity in her family. In a stream of consciousness novel with some poetry, Fatimah Asghar explores identity and home in an intense and beautiful way.

When We Were Sisters is the story of three Muslim sisters trying to make their way through the world after the death of their parents. Each play a role and they grow up absolutely attached to each other.
They have formed an unbreakable bond as they all have clung together to maintain a family.

As inevitable happens, one of the sisters seeks to break outside of her role and place inside the family - to venture out on her own.

A tender story about the role that love and family play in creating who we are - while simultaneously keeping them from venturing out into the larger world.