Things She Could Never Have

Twelve stories about the trauma and everyday suffering of women in modern Pakistan. The characters range from the mother of a young boy who is recruited to the Taliban, to a young trans woman who steals from shops rather than express her anger when she experiences discrimination, to a young woman welcoming home from Canada her long-time crush, to a young woman who abandons her family to join ISIS, to a girl who is taught that being sexually assaulted by a teacher is her own fault, to a woman who is separated from her husband during the Partition in 1947.

Most of these stories are about women who see, to some extent or another, their society from the outside. They don‰ЫЄt like the status quo, or they exist in the margins of society, or they don‰ЫЄt conform to the expectations of their families, or the behaviour of others makes them feel that they don‰ЫЄt belong. Often it‰ЫЄs not a choice, but sometimes it is. These are stories about every day people of Pakistan facing death, violence, sexual assault, arranged marriages, religious conversions, the loss of an unborn child, changing sexual mores, families torn apart by prejudice.

The stories in Things She Could Never Have are well-written, sensitively engaging you in the experience of these women and girls. There is a joy in womanhood mixed with the suffering ‰ЫУ the pleasures of love, the joy of beauty, the wonder of children and family. Some of the stories are heartbreaking, while others end without a clear resolution, which is its own sort of pleasure, leaving you wanting more.

The last lines of the final story reflect the importance of stories themselves: ‰ЫПBut then, I remind myself, I still have you. I have you here, within me, listening to my stories.‰Ыќ The act of sharing these stories is a comfort and a balm, not a way to fix the traumas or heal the pain, but a way to bear witness.

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)