Really interesting book - not what I expected but I was compelled by it. Not quite sure of some the author's meaning but the writing is of course incredible.

"Best of Friends" by Kamila Shamsie is a powerful exploration of friendship, loyalty, and the complexities of life choices against a backdrop of political upheaval. The novel centers on the intertwined lives of two childhood friends, Zahra and Cassie, as they navigate the challenges of growing up in Karachi and the divergent paths their lives take as adults.

Shamsie’s prose is both lyrical and incisive, capturing the richness of the characters' experiences and the depth of their emotional connections. The narrative alternates between their childhood and adulthood, revealing how their shared history and personal decisions shape their identities and their friendship.

The themes of friendship, betrayal, and the impact of sociopolitical contexts on personal lives are deftly woven throughout the story. As the characters face moral dilemmas and personal crises, readers are invited to reflect on the nature of loyalty and the weight of past choices. Shamsie skillfully addresses the complexities of navigating relationships in a world marked by conflict and uncertainty.

The pacing is well-structured, balancing moments of introspection with the tension of external circumstances that threaten to disrupt the characters’ lives. The rich cultural setting adds depth to the narrative, enhancing the emotional stakes and grounding the story in a real-world context.

Overall, "Best of Friends" is a thought-provoking and beautifully written novel that resonates with themes of love, loss, and the enduring bonds of friendship. Kamila Shamsie has crafted a compelling story that invites readers to reflect on the choices that define us, making it a must-read for fans of contemporary literary fiction.

I am a big fan of Kamila Shamsie so was very excited to read this. It is about friendship during challenging times.

Not my usual book, but I really enjoyed it. So much better than I expected. It was also my first Kamila Shamsie book and I love the writing style. It’s easy to read but really pulls you in to the story.

Following the incredible Home Fire, any Kamila Shamsie novel should be a promising read.

Best of Friends deals with female friendship over the course of 30 years. Despite their many differences Zahra and Maryam have been best friends since they were schoolgirls in Pakistan. Now successful women in London, they are finally forced to confront their history,

From the beginning, despite attending the same school, it is clear the girls are different, Maryam is heir to her family’s business, while Zahra faces a more precarious position, with a journalist father, albeit a sports journalist, who is placed in a difficult situation due to the politics of the time.

Fast forward and Maryam is a start-up investor while Zahra heads up a civil liberties organisation. Despite diverging paths, their friendship is transplanted with them from Karachi as they both end up in London.

Tensions between the women change as they grow - from money and class as teenagers, to ethics as 40-somethings in successful UK careers.

It’s wonderful to read about a female friendship so fully fleshed out as the one presented here. Inevitably it will draw comparison to Ferrante simply because so few other works deal with the topic.

As the girls go through puberty and grow into women, so does the precariousness of their relationship - the characters dance around the issues they face, fearful of breaking their bond. Shamsie also wonderfully captures how it feels to be 14 - still a girl but on the brink of womanhood, presumably compounded in Karachi where misogyny and mail violence against women and girls is so much more prevalent.

While not as accomplished as Home Fire, Best of Friends is still a beautifully written exploration of female friendship, class and race.

Kamila Shamsie's "Best of Friends" is a poignant exploration of friendship, loyalty, and the complexities of growing up. The novel follows the intertwined lives of Maryam and Zahra, two women who navigate the challenges of their bond from their youth in Karachi to their adult lives in London.

Shamsie deftly captures the nuances of their relationship, set against a backdrop of political and social change. Her characters are richly developed, and their journeys reflect the enduring and sometimes painful nature of deep friendships.

Overall, "Best of Friends" is a beautifully crafted and emotionally resonant novel that examines how time and circumstances test the ties that bind us. It's a compelling read for anyone interested in the intricacies of long-lasting friendships.

I really wanted to like this book, the description held such promise but it just didn't connect for me. Middle of the road.

It was fine. It kept me reading but I didn’t really engage with it or find myself loving the story or the characters. I wouldn’t recommend it to friends but I’m sure some people would like it.

I always love reading Kamila Shamsie books as she writes so well. This book is no exception to the high quality of writing and an insightful portrayal of female friendship.

This tells the story of Maryam and Zahra's friendship from schoolgirls in Kharachi to adults in London. Both highly successful but in completely different ways. A traumatic incident from their childhoods affects an event many years later and their friendship is tested. A really enjoyable recommended read.

You go on a journey through Maryam and Zahra's friendship, and although I preferred the narrative around their childhood than their adulthood, I found it a thought provoking and enjoyable read.

An enjoyable read, well written and entertaining. Hadn't read this author before but would consider reading again.

This was such an intriguing read and I loved the writing style!

The characters stood out for me, as did the storyline. It was a beautifully written book
!

A compelling but surprisingly bloodless portrayal of female friendship. Shamshie builds her story around her two protagonists skillfully, centring character as the heart of her story. Both are young women born into relative those differing levels of affluence. Zahra the daughter of a popular cricket commentator and head teacher, Maryam the heir apparent to a thriving family business., Both spend their younger years in the dictatorship of [name] and the requisite pressure to conform, both struggle with the misogyny of their time and environment, the "girlfear" (as Maryam calls it) of being powerless and preyed upon by men, both rejoice at the new potential ushered in by the election of Benazhir Bhutto and a democratic Pakistan. But an indiscretion leads to a fear-filled event that will colour their friendship and their adult lives as ex-pats in the UK.

Although presented as opposites Maryam and Zahra are more like two sides to the same coin. Maryam has a wealth and social status far beyond Zahra's but they both attend an elite school and are protected from the worst by their families. While Maryam is a ruthless business woman, ready to navigate grey moral areas in the name of power and profit Zahra is the famous, celebrity-befriended director of a high-profile civil right organisation. It's cleverly done, teasing out the differences and similarities despite their ostensibly very different values. But there is a lack of real peril and consequence that makes it somewhat unclear what Shamsie is trying to say, Zahra tries to maintain the moral high ground while Maryam is happy to abandon it in the name of expediency, but both continually escape from times of trial with very little meaningful consequence, regardless of their actions. Where consequences do hit with real significance, it is collateral damage, relegated to subplots and side characters that exist to highlight the different-not-so-different protagonists. The writing is wonderful and the characters exquisitely drawn but where the narrative falls down is the lack of growth, the way events play out for the adult women is almost identical to how they acted as teenagers and the ending gives no suggestion that they have a significant impact.

This was such an interesting read! I found myself so engrossed in the story, the characters had such incredible arcs, and I can't wait to follow this author's journey!

I found this a difficult novel to read. The opening setting is Pakistan, against a strict political regime was interesting, but I found the friendship between Maryam and Zahra quite unconvincing. The book is set over two time periods: childhood and their young womanhood. I could not connect with either character: not their decisions or lifestyles and was glad, to be honest, to get to the end of this book.

I found the references to cricket intriguing and wondered how much a young girl in Pakistan would have been allowed to participate in this sport in the 1980s. The style of narration is interesting as it is shared between Maryam and Zahra which means that you can get two contradictory versions of events which take place: I quite like this and found it quite a realistic approach to addressing some difficult issues.

Beautifully written, but it just didn't quite hit the mark for me. 3 and a half stars.

I´ve read two of Kamilas´previous books and liked them. And that´s why I had such high expectations of this new novel. Unfortunately, something didn't work here.
The title suggests that this is going to be about friendship. And it is to some point. The book starts in Karachi in 1980s where two girls are besties and talk a lot about their future and what this unique friendship between them means, how strong it is. But it also has a deeper meaning. Friendship as a word is used in a cynical way in the political context of the relationship between Britain and Pakistan. This may seem to be smart, but honestly, it left me dumbfounded. I honestly don´t understand what Kamila wanted to say in here. What are or were her expectations? Every country defends its own best interests and a friendship between humans cannot and should not be understood in the same way as between countries! Look what has happened to the glorious UK! The Great is a thing of the past.

The characters didn't speak to me at all. I found them boring and annoying.
The writing also didn´t appeal to me.
I´m sorry, I really wanted to like it.

Kamila Shamsie's latest offering is not one that has gone down well with some readers, with its examination of the complexities of long term female friendship, from a childhood in Karachi in 1988, and their adult selves in a 2019 Britain run by a government hostile to migrants. Pakistan in 1988 is under the military dictatorship of General Zia, the fear and paranoia associated with that, with corruption, criminality, abductions, surveillance, a religiously conservative patriarchy with its class divisions and where a conscience can be a dangerous thing. 14 year olds Maryam Khan and Zahra Ali attend an exclusive school, the protected, wealthy, ambitious Maryam confident in a future in running the family's leather company, and the bookish Zahra, an intelligent grafter, daughter of a celebrity cricket commentator, intent on escaping Karachi for university abroad.

Like teenagers the world over, the girls are becoming sexually aware, Maryam more overtly than Zahra, with strong urges to explore and experiment with boys who have become much more aware of them. However, it is not a level playing field culturally when it comes to girls, to whom close attention is paid, even if they come from well off backgrounds, it is all to easy for reputations to be damaged beyond repair, to be publicly disgraced and humiliated. Maryam tells a lie as the friends impossibly speculate over the endurance of their continuing friendship when they are much older. As Benazir Bhutto is elected, they attend a party which ends with Maryam feeling 'girl fear' for the first time, her life to change for good, as she protects Zahra, ending up in a boarding school in England. The narrative then picks up the friends, still close despite their political differences, in 2019, who have established successful careers, Maryam as a successful venture capitalist and Zahra, as the Director of the Centre of Civil Liberties, a constant thorn in the side of the government.

However, both are flawed women who come to be haunted by the trauma of their past, the consequence of which will threaten the very fabric of their lifelong friendship and underlines that you can feel like you know someone inside out but still be shocked by what emerges and the differences in perspectives. What really resonated with me was the stress and pressure on the Karachi school girls and women when it comes to their gender and their sexuality, so often repressed, heavily policed, and which we know can result in deadly consequences. In comparison, the lives of the friends in London felt more difficult for me to relate to, although it shines a welcome light on the shameful treatment of migrants. Despite the flaws, I have no hesitation in recommending this to readers interested in Karachi life in 1988 and like reading of long term friendships between women. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I absolutely loved Home Fire, so I was very excited to receive an eARC of Shamsie's newest release, Best of Friends.
Unfortunately, I really did not enjoy this story at all. Neither of the two lead characters were written well enough for me to find engaging or interesting and the story was just boring. By about the 40-50% mark, I found myself becoming detached from the story and then I eventually lost all interest.
Sadly, Best of Friends definitely wasn't the book for me. My opinion seems to be in the minority here as other reviewers gave more glowing reviews.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

It’s been more than half a decade since Donald Trump and Brexit changed the 21st century as we knew it. The sharp sword of politics has since torn across families and friendships, leaving wounds so deep that they might well never heal. After all, how close can “close” people really be if they see the world from spectacularly different sides of a fault line? This question looms in Kamila Shamsie’s latest novel Best of Friends like a large boulder threatening to roll over a long and loyal friendship with the slightest tip of balance.

We first meet Zahra and Maryam as teenagers in Karachi, preoccupied with all things teenaged: music, boys, first kisses and friendships. From the very beginning, they are, what one would call, poles apart. Zahra is street-smart, while Maryam is a bookish nerd. Zahra comes from a wealthy family who wield money and power to get their way; Zahra’s parents are progressive and politically active middle-class Pakistanis. The girls come of age when Pakistan elects its first woman prime minister, and the world suddenly feels like an oyster for these two young Muslim girls.

Best of Friends is as much coming-of-age novel, as it is a bildungsroman. We follow the journeys of Maryam and Zahra from Karachi to London, where they become incredibly successful women in their middle-age, occupying the highest seats of power in their respective fields. We see them deftly navigate the West with all its attendant phenomena of structural racism, xenophobia and white supremacy. However, their lives and worlds remain ever so different -- Maryam is a venture capitalist, flirting with all kinds of things that Zahra, a civil rights lawyer, stands against. We wonder how they continue to be friends, even best friends, until we remember our own old friendships. We say to ourselves, this is the kind of friendship possible only if formed in childhood, for no adults with such divergent worldviews would seek each other out as best friends.

Like in Home Fire, Shamsie’s Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, this one, too, is set in a social churning. Shamsie, after all, is not new to situating her novels in big political moments, whether in Pakistan, her home country, or the United Kingdom, her country of residence. She does not shy from asking big moral and ethical questions either: What is goodness? What is evil? How do you discharge duty and filial love in the face of wrongdoing?

The enormous themes of our day are distilled through our small, everyday lives. Friendships are made and unmade on the large and frantic canvas of the world passing us by. Best of Friends, then, makes us pause and ask ourselves: Who are we in relation to our closest people? Who did we think we were going to be?