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Congratulations to Aria Aber! Her debut novel, "Good Girl," was longlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction. One of my favorite reads of the year.

You Belong to the “Others��

Coming of age is all about getting a grip on your identity, a tough challenge for anyone. Now picture yourself growing up in Berlin as the daughter of Afghan refugees. Nilab Haddadi tells people she is Greek. She tells people she is Egyptian. She is Italian or Israeli. She is Nila�� not Nilab�� that “b�� is suspect. Her whole Afghan background in Berlin is denied. In a post-9/11 world of Islamophobia, one needs to put up one’s shields.

In many novels, the city, the sense of place, is a character. Nila’s Berlin is a disease. She is dying to break out; to reject the ghetto her family was trapped in. She throws herself headlong into the club scene, a mishmash of drugs, and ��... I was ravished by a hunger to ruin my life.�� * She finds Marlowe, a thirty-six-year-old American writer “with a square jaw and dimpled chin, the nose of an emperor,�� * He not only tells her she is beautiful, he encourages her artistic aspirations in photography, and dazzles her with a different side of the city. This is what Nila latches onto, before she sees the true nature of their relationship and what they provide for one another.

Her parents came from an upper-middle class medical background in Kabul. Now her father alternates between driving taxis, flipping burgers at McDonalds, and drawing unemployment. In the aftermath of 9/11, her family had to fade into a background, lest their skin tone suggest a terrorist threat. Swastika graffiti from skinheads and neo-Nazis is commonplace and violent attacks could happen at any time. “You watch the news; everything you feared is true: They hate us. You belong, you understand, to the others.��

Identity. Nila is searching for her worth and direction, when she is coming from deep-seated self-loathing, shame, and paranoia. She wants to be the “Good Girl�� -- “Whenever I harbored guilt, I prayed to the angels and God to cut out my heart and wash it too��. Please, I would pray, I want to be good, though in the mornings, the yearning for God, like every true thing I had ever felt, embarrassed me.�� *

I just loved this book. With as much as Nila is put through, she shows an undeniable spirit to persevere. The author, Aria Aber, is a celebrated poet and this is her first novel�� a surprising triumph.

Thank you to Random House and Hogarth Books, as well as NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #GoodGirl #NetGalley