Some unsolicited thoughts and opinions from a mother and daughter who love reading and talking about books!

In this powerful novel, Ayad Akhtar tells the story of what it was like growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in America’s heartland the Muslim son of Pakistani immigrant physician parents. His father, a successful cardiologist, embraced the American dream, thrilled with his seemingly unlimited opportunity and all that his money could buy. Even while feeling a part of the U.S., however, father and son experienced discrimination because they were Black. Those experiences were magnified after the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11, when being Muslim became another reason for discrimination.

When my book club chose The Truths We Hold as this month’s read, I figured it would be about just who the Democratic vice presidential candidate is and how she got to where she is today. This memoir delivers so much more than that though. From Senator Harris’ description of her childhood in Oakland, California, we understand how her parents’ activism in the civil rights movement shaped the person she would become.

I will admit I was nervous to start this book, which I added to my reading list at the suggestion of smart people who offered resources to educate and spread anti-racism. In my vague understanding of who Malcolm X was, I pictured him as an angry, violent version of Martin Luther King Jr.

I would also like to recommend I Am Malala. Quite by chance I read this book less than a month after finishing Daugher of Destiny. The two books make excellent companions.

I honestly don’t remember how this book got on my reading list, except I think it was mentioned in another book. Perhaps Hillary Clinton’s most recent? However it came to me, I picked it up knowing almost nothing about Bhutto, her family or Pakistani history. My only understanding going in was that she was the first female prime minister in the Muslim world.