Faiza seems to have it all - she's a stay at home mom with a loving, hard working husband, three wonderful children, a beautiful home, a small, tight group of friends and a larger group of acquaintances. It's that last one that has been the hardest for her...
"At the school gates, Faiza fits in. It took a few years, but now the snobbish white mothers who mistook her for the nanny treat her as one of their own. She's learned to crack their subtle codes, speak their language of fashion and vacations and haircuts. You'd never guess, seeing her at the trendy kids' parties and the leisurely coffee mornings, that her childhood was spent being bullied and being ashamed of her poor Pakistani immigrant parents."
And then Tom loses his job - and Faiza is in a panic. To keep up appearances, she's been borrowing from their emergency fund - and Tom doesn't know. What is she going to do? How is she going to find and replace the money?
I quite liked Faiza as a lead character. She's loving, funny, kind and caring. But, I must admit, her trying to 'keep up with the Joneses' saddened me. The lead mother of the in group made my blood boil with her thinly veiled racism. Now, that thread is part of the overall plot, but the need to replace the money is the driving device of the plot.
Faiza's efforts to save her home - and her marriage are band aids that keep falling off. Each new solution brings it's own set of problems and the deception and lies continue to grow. I did wonder about Tom's ignorance as to their money situation. But I just rolled with it.
Ali-Afzal tackles a lot of issues in Would I Lie to You?, including workplace harassment, friendship, family and (I loved this....) "how much more should she sacrifice to live someone else's idea of the dream life".
Ali-Afzal is a fresh voice on the fiction scene, successfully combining a fun tale with a number of truths.
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