Profound Coming-of-Age Story: Read Our Review of Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie

In 1988 Karachi, two fourteen-year-old girls, Maryam and Zahra, are a decade into their friendship, sharing in-jokes, secrets and a love for George Michael. As Pakistan’s dictatorship falls and a woman comes to power, the world suddenly seems full of possibilities. Elated by the change in the air, they make a snap decision at a party. That night, everything goes wrong, and the two girls are powerless to change the outcome.

In present-day London, the two now-influential women remain bound together by loyalties, disloyalties, and the memory of that night, which echoes through the present in unexpected ways. Now both have power; and both have very different ideas of how to wield it. Their friendship has always felt unbreakable; can it be undone by one decision?

Kamila Shamsie is the critically acclaimed author of seven previous novels including Home Fire, winner of the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction and longlisted for the Booker Prize, Burnt Shadows and Broken Verses. She rose to prominence as a young Pakistani-born British writer whose talent for writing about her home country and the migrant experience has been widely recognised. Her latest novel, Best of Friends, is a compelling account of what happens to a close childhood friendship over decades of personal and political changes.

Best of Friends is set between Karachi in the late 80s, where Shamsie herself was a teenager, and contemporary London where Shamsie now resides. Maryam and Zahra’s teenage years in Karachi are a fascinating exploration of a country that was in the grips of a dictatorship until General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s death in a plane crash in 1988, which we read of in the book. The proliferation of Western ideals and popular culture is also central here, as the girls dream of studying abroad, and love watching The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and listening to George Michael. The second part of the novel is a fascinating exploration of Maryam and Zahra’s lives as successful migrant women in London. The impact of tech venture capitalist Maryam’s facial recognition app also adds ever-pressing ethical questions to the mix.

At its heart, Best of Friends is a coming-of-age story that examines the bonds of female friendship. Zahra and Maryam’s relationship is repeatedly tested as they grow and change throughout the novel. Like other novels that chart friendships over the years (think Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet), Shamsie’s exploration of this relationship hits the nail on the head. She doesn’t over-romanticise childhood friendships but deep-dives into what makes them so formative and impactful upon us all. Best of Friends is a stunningly told novel that cements Shamsie’s reputation as a leading contemporary novelist.

Buy a copy of Best of Friends here.