Farzana Doctor

Stealing Nasreen was a nice, quiet novel about connections between people. I enjoyed it a lot, I love reading characters in the city I live in, though I did think it obvious that it was Farzana Doctor's first novel. It felt a bit clumsy in places, a little rough in corners, but overall it was a strong debut.

The titular Nasreen is a 30ish South Asian Toronto lesbian, totally ordinary in a lot of ways. She's still healing after her recent break up with a cheating girlfriend, she works as a psychologist at a hospital, and she's trying to connect more to her father after her mother's recent death from cancer. Nas is a very likable, very relatable character. She's in her 30s, a professional with a career, but she's still not 100% certain where she's going or what she's doing.

Shaffiq and his wife Salma have only been in Canada for two years, immigrating after Shaffiq was passed over for one too many promotions for being Muslim. He's an accountant working as a night cleaner at the hospital Nasreen works at. Salma is a former schoolteacher working at a dry cleaners because she doesn't have the accreditation. Shaffiq is bored by his job and starts to collect tiny objects tossed by… (more)