How We Met is an extremely beautiful book about family, love, grief, and coming of age. Huma Qureshi has a simple, straightforward way of writing which is easy to connect with. As a reader, it took me a short bit of time to get engrossed in the memoir but then before I knew it, I was in floods of tears having been so emotionally invested. I'm not somebody who usually cries when reading books so that is certainly an impressive sign that this memoir made me feel so much. Truly such a beautiful book! I hope more readers pick it up. Thanks to Huma Qureshi for sharing her story with us.

Memoirs aren’t my usual book of choice but I’ve been seeing Huma’s book everywhere! Thank you to @elliotandthompson and @thenetgalley for sending me this book to review. I finished Qureshi’s book in one reading and I think I want her to be my best friend! Her style is so relatable as a British Muslim woman and resonates with an article I recently wrote for @hikayaat magazine on marriage. Her writing is so refreshingly ordinary and it is so nice to see a happy ending to a story that usually causes such a riot within the South Asian community. I love how her book goes back and forth between her search for marriage and her current lifestyle. I felt as though she was speaking as me, especially in her desire to keep writing and going freelance. She gives a voice to those insecure moments that many women feel when they don’t fit into the traditional trappings of a South Asian society. Definitely encouraged me to read more of her work and to give memoirs a chance :) I would recommend this book for some light-hearted relief and if you want an excuse to cheer a fellow British Muslim woman on for metaphorically sticking her middle finger up to societal expectations and living life to her own standards.

This is a beautifully crafted memoir from award-winning writer and journalist, Huma Qureshi that, on a surface level, details the process of her meeting and then marrying her white, initially Christian husband as a British Pakistani Muslim woman. But like any really amazing memoir, there is so much more to these two hundred and ten pages than can be adequately in a bite-sized blurb. The book opens at the close, we are immediately introduced to Huma’s six year old son, Suffian, to her current family life and we are treated to glimpses of her happy present throughout as the timeline skips back and forth between ‘These Days’ and ‘Those Days’. This is a book about finding love that doesn’t rely on or require a frantic ‘will they/won’t they. It’s a deeply personal, often heart-wrenching but nonetheless very gentle exploration of love, family, loss, identity, self-acceptance and so much more, made all the more powerful by our surety of everything working out in the end.

An informative and illuminating true story. Unlocks some of the mystique of arranged Muslim marriages and the reasons behind them. How this process can affect your self worth and how second generation British can struggle. I found this compelling but so interesting. It has made me more aware of what friends may be going through.

TW: Grief, Death of a Parent After falling head over heels for Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love, I was kindly gifted her memoir How We Met by Elliot & Thompson Qureshi is an exceptional writer and uses language so expertly, whether she is writing short stories or about her own life. How We Met is about Qureshi's life as a British Muslim and meeting her white boyfriend, now husband, and introducing him to her family. The journey of Qureshi is full of ups and downs; leaving home, introductions to several potential husbands, losing her father, gaining a dream job, moving cities to finally meeting her now husband. I felt there were many moments all women would be able to relate to, regardless of religion. However it did make me think of my grandmother who is staunchly Catholic, pointing out all the eligible Catholic men in church every Sunday. Memoirs are usually people that have suffered significant trauma or had some miraculous event happen. Qureshi states that her story isn't exceptional, but I disagree. I think everyone has an interesting story and I absolutely love the stories behind how couples met and their circumstances. Huma Qureshi has 100% become an auto-buy author for me and I am so eager to see what she releases next. I've already been dipping back into TWDNTTPWL and How We Met. Her writing is so poignant and measured yet feels so effortless and as though your friend is telling you a story. How We Met is out in paperback today and I urge you to grab a copy. And if you haven't grabbed TWDNTTPWL yet, this is your signal to get both. She is a writer that will have you thinking about her words, characters and life in the days, weeks and months that will follow. AD- PR Product