HALF STAR.
This rating is not so much for the book as for the woman herself.
Still, if only for her horrible experiences, I was inclined towards giving this book a 3-star rating. One sentence in the whole book totally ruined it for me - the lady goes to India and is allowed to enter without a visa(her husband has asked the Indian Govt for assistance in overthrowing the existing Pak regime) - she wants to, and is allowed to visit Ajmer Sharif along with a couple of special agents in tow - she complains about this as if implying that the Govt should have left her free to roam the country without a visa - then, the clincher for me: when she prays in the shrine, the agents are standing in the same room - she has the almighty gall to think:
"Their Hindu presence disturbed my Islamic prayers."
God in Heaven, what unbelievable poppycock!
I truly could not breathe for a few seconds, and actually re-read the paragraph a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t reading it wrong! Damn it, you’re in MY country, under the mercy of MY Govt, and our’Hindu presence’ disturbs your prayers?
Was she not saying her’Islamic prayers’ when she had illicit liasons(her words, not mine) with another woman’s husband while still married to Anees?
I wonder how her’Islamic prayers’ were not disturbed when she broke Sherry’s marriage and home?
Were her’Islamic prayers’ not disturbed when she broke her own home and the heart of her first husband Anees?
Where were her’Islamic prayers’ when she dumped her first daughter Tanya(not once, THREE times!) in order to run off with her’feudal lord’?
After this, the whole book seemed an exercise in self-indulgence. Both, she as well as her 2nd husband come across as self-centred, self-consumed persons, and I daresay, they deserved each other.