Review by Booklist Review
In this essay collection, Niazi, who writes a parenting and motherhood column for The Cut called "The Hard Part," explores growing up in the 1980s and '90s, striving as the immigrant child of immigrants in Canada, surviving assault and addiction, and becoming a parent. Niazi's independence and hard work to succeed, first as a student and then as a journalist, form the through line the title suggests. "I've been liberated by my ambition, vilified for it, buried under it, and finally, I've been freed from it." Another thread is the author's love of writing, "all I'd ever wanted to do," from penning letters to her future self as a teenager to putting together a Toronto alt-weekly for no pay in her early twenties to moving across the world for a job at the BBC, infant in tow. Niazi's Millennial peers will relate to her realization of the never-arriving payoff of working one's way up in a so-called meritocracy, and to her terror at bringing children into a world they've been told is ending their whole lives, yet doing it anyway.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this pert if slipshod debut, Canadian journalist Niazi unpacks the work ethic instilled in her by a Muslim immigrant childhood at the edge of poverty. Burdened by her parents' unhappy marriage, Niazi was raised with the immigrant refrain that the "sacrifices of home and family should spur in us... raw desire to succeed and better ourselves." Though she was pushed by her parents toward "the standard list of hoped-for occupations: doctor, lawyer, engineer," a high school internship with a youth-focused newspaper convinced Niazi that journalism was her path. Throughout college and young adulthood, she was torn between writing for an alt weekly that "paid me in free food and beer" and taking jobs that could earn her a living. The promise of stability came with a producing job at the CBC in Toronto, but a violent attack by an ex-boyfriend sent her spiraling into drug addiction. She then became sober, married a coworker, and navigated infertility and pregnancy, all the while wondering if ambition was the biggest obstacle to her happiness. Niazi's core ideas about hustle culture and the immigrant experience are plenty rich, but pedestrian prose and a pervading sense of solipsism prevent them from blossoming. It feels like a missed opportunity. Agent: Erin Malone, WME. (Jan.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Muslim Canadian writer and mother finds happiness by being her authentic self. At age 5, Niazi's family emigrated to Canada from London, where Niazi was born. Partly because of a lack of money, the family moved often. This instability, coupled with domestic violence, filled the author with a determination to "escape the poverty and trauma" that characterized her early years. Her first forays into adulthood seemed to repeat her childhood patterns as she unknowingly entered a devastatingly violent romantic relationship, battled addiction, and struggled to find work that allowed her to be her full self while simultaneously paying a living wage. Eventually, she fell in love with her future husband, Matt, moved to London to pursue a job with the BBC, and became a mother. In Britain, she writes, "The constant push and pull between work and mothering was breaking me, turning me into something far less than I was, than I could be. I felt like I was pretending to be good at both but failing miserably at either." New motherhood forced her to reckon with her dissatisfaction with her prestigious job and propeled her back to Toronto and family. At home, Niazi finally finds answers. "I spent more than half of my life thinking that I needed to be ambitious to get away, to be someone and do something better," she writes. "The last five years have shown me that I just needed to become more truly myself." Niazi's storytelling is perceptive and relatable, beautifully drawing connections between her individual experience and systems of oppression. While the story at times strays from the author's central thesis about ambition, this is overall a powerful and generous work. A warm, vulnerable memoir about trading ambition for sincerity and joy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
