Book Review: Rafina

 

Title: Rafina
Author: Shandana Minhas
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary
Source: Review Copy
Publisher: Pan Macmillan India

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Thank you so much Pan Macmillan India and Shandana Minhas for sending me ‘Rafina’! I did not expect Pan Macmillan India would send me a book for review! Eeeee, thank you so much again!! 😀

Rafina looks at the glamorous girl on the billboard outside her window in Karachi and thinks, It won’t be long before I’m up there. Too poor for college and dismissive of marriage, the clear-eyed young woman cajoles her mother’s friend and Radiance beauty parlour masseuse, Rosie Khala, into taking her on as an apprentice. Thus begin her brave misadventures – from clumsy parlour assistant to mostly dependable tea girl, till in a stroke of serendipity, she is ‘discovered’. Poised to have everything she thought she wanted, the only thing standing between Rafina and that billboard are the people who think she should still be using the service entrance.

I did not know about the author much so I thought I shall Google it about her. I found out that Shandana Minhas is an award-winning Pakistani author for her previous works and after I saw all the praise for the author and the summary of the book, I was so much looking forward to reading it. And plus when the book cover is this beautiful, I just couldn’t stop myself. The blurb seemed different than the usual books and I was fascinated. Little did I know! There are times you don’t ‘appreciate’ a book and there are times when you ‘dislike’ a book, this is the ‘disliking’ a book time.

The story is pretty straight-forward, a young poor girl wants to aim high and loves the lavish lifestyle, goes on to achieve those things she never dreamt of, in a way she fulfills her dream. Very inspiring and motivating, but the way it has been executed, not at all good, nope! Starting from disrespecting your fellow member’s importance to the overconfidence of the protagonist to looking down up. Degradation of women, body shaming and pure ignorance. There were times when I wanted to slam the book down just so the nightmare ends. I don’t think so I have ever used such harsh words for books. The protagonist, Rafina, she was one hell of an arrogant, self-obsessed, self-centered, pure evil I must say. I being a girl did not like her at all.

What I did not like at all about the book was the way the entire concept of ‘fulfilling your dream’ has been portrayed. There are so many parts in the book where the author has degraded other women, I mean, why? I do not understand. It is not only a single ‘gender’ she has degraded, starting from trans-genders to homosexuals, why do you need to degrade a humankind? I do not understand the logic. I found the writing style so amateurish and the worst was the ending, it ends abruptly. In the end, there was a forced sexual scene/paragraph that came out of nowhere and it was highly unnecessary. I can go on and on but I do not want to. I don’t think so I will recommend this book to anyone. I am so sorry!!

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