A careful and nuanced story that lays out - in pain, joy, and much ambivalence - the ways that desire is a powerful force that makes people do reckless things and want situations / consider partners who are not necessarily the wisest or most sustainable choices. (The protagonists experience their situation as - and are careful to name it as - love; but for me, the relationship had more the flavour of infatuated desire). Set in Trinidad, where several communities live alongside each other, and sometimes intermarry, this story also brings us into a world that may be unfamiliar to many readers. The cultural and social texture is introduced with skill, is never heavy-handed, and did not leave me feeling as though it were too much or too little. I learned enough to understand, enough to want to read and know more, but not so much that I struggled through or lost interest. Everything was relatable to me, in a human sense, while being inflected through a specific set of cultural features. The book gives interesting hints of how living in complex societies (with what sociologists call superdiversity) exposes us to other norms, other styles of living– and how we might begin to take on some of those for ourselves, or at least feel more comfortable about them. This is an absolutely unabrasive read, technically. I mention this because, in these days of KU and 99p novels, there are plenty of books out there that fall short. This novel has clearly benefited from structural editing for plot and character development (author's website also demonstrates this); copy editing and line edits have all been handled with professionalism; formatting is perfect. It’s understandable that many current books don't reach this standard, but very welcome to have a reading experience where serious amounts of time and expertise have been given to editorial work. Seamless, smooth reading. - Caroline Osella

The pacing is exemplary. Coreishy didn’t waste time setting the stakes. Early in Chapter 1, she writes: “She didn’t need her father’s permission. His fury would be waiting for her when she got back but she would deal with it then.” Two sentences, and I immediately knew the risk Asiyah was taking, and how she chose to walk into it anyway. As someone with a Trinidadian father myself, and an independent streak, I felt clearly why Asiyah went on her “retreat” to “get out of her comfort zone” anyway. That’s the throughline of the whole novel, really. Asiyah moving forward, anyway. Despite the consequences. It shows up in small details. She paints. She solo travels to a nearby hotel. She agrees to an early-morning photoshoot with Francisco “Cisco” Rafael, the photographer neighbor with two young daughters and a “luxurious baritone” that she bumps into on the beach. How many times did I shake my head and warn Asiyah under my breath with a “don’t do it…” knowing full well she was going to go ahead anyway? To me, these decisions read a little like recklessness and a lot like a woman desperate to claim small, private freedoms wherever she can find them. It’s no coincidence that a story about a woman fighting to control her own narrative is populated with so many moments of her choosing to be seen and reclaim her identity. Coreishy portrays her multidimensional characters in relatable ways. Asiyah’s faith, her family’s expectations, the textures, flavors, and rhythms of multicultural Trinidadian life. Each character is recognizable in our own real lives—wherever we are. The ones we know. The ones we’ve fallen in love with. The ones we probably shouldn’t have. The ones who, for better or worse, chiseled us into the people we are today. True to its slow burn read, Asiyah’s reckoning takes some patience to get to. Readers wanting the confrontation sooner and faster may feel the middle stretch a little. I didn’t mind that tension. Coreishy built it, and earned it (and if you were reading carefully, she hinted at it from the start). C.T. Luna, author of Brown Beyond Borders

When I finally finished Reputation by Amanda Coreishy, I called my best friend and burst into tears. Unexpected, deep-belly, hyperventilating-until-I-couldn’t-speak tears. Gasping for breath, I had to tell her how this book had impacted me. I got no warning that this was how I was going to respond at the end of the book. This was just what happened. This book tells the story of a young Muslim woman of faith, navigating her faith, her family, her young budding career, and a relationship that was unexpected but was very real to her. I watched this woman find her voice, make choices, oppose patriarchy, and find an authenticity in her faith that went beyond anything any of the humans around her were modeling. I saw her find a deep relationship with God that did not require an intermediary. I identified with so much of this story, although I was never Muslim, that I was overcome emotionally by the time the whole story was done. This is the first time I’ve truly enjoyed West Indian writing because—I don’t know why—I was completely enchanted by hearing places described that I can identify with. I felt like I was on the journey, like I was seeing this woman in her natural habitat because I’ve lived in her natural habitat. Even though some places were fictionalized, they were so well described, and so similar to reality, that it was seamless between the places that truly exist and the places that didn’t. The emotions were so well described for each character that I was blown away by how believable each character was. Everybody stayed true to their role. I hate when a character is shown to have one personality and then does something completely out of character that cannot possibly be logically explained. It makes me feel like I’ve been dropped out of the book. I had none of that happening in this story. So I remained completely engrossed throughout. Full disclosure: I have not read a novel front to back in under three days in several, several years. I’ve listened to audiobooks, but I have not held a book in my hand and read it front to back in several years. I did not expect to be unable to put this book down when I picked it up. I’d given myself a month to finish the book, and it was done in three days. -Dr Linnis Joseph