Sophia Khan is Not Obliged by Ayisha Malik

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 439

Publisher: Twenty7 

Released: 3rd of September 2015

"Brilliant idea! Excellent! Muslim dating? Well, I had no idea you were allowed to date.' Then he leaned towards me and looked at me sympathetically. 'Are your parents quite disappointed?'

Unlucky in love once again after her possible-marriage-partner-to-be proves a little too close to his parents, Sofia Khan is ready to renounce men for good. Or at least she was, until her boss persuades her to write a tell-all expose about the Muslim dating scene.

As her woes become her work, Sofia must lean on the support of her brilliant friends, baffled colleagues and baffling parents as she goes in search of stories for her book. In amongst the marriage-crazy relatives, racist tube passengers and decidedly odd online daters, could there be a a lingering possibility that she might just be falling in love . . . ?

What I Have to Say 

This book captured my heart in the way that very few romance books do. Sophia was just such a great character. She was strong and well written, with a voice that felt more like she was just chatting to you than that you were reading a book. She was hopeless at recognizing when guys liked her and even more hopeless in recognizing when she liked them back. She faced racists on the tube and potential in-laws down with a witty sense of humour and complete faith in herself and what she wants. 

The story was good enough for a romance book. with quirky characters and strange happenings bringing it up in places. I think I didn't like the main plotline so much because I'm not really into romance that much rather than the story itself. But the book had plenty ways to make up for this. 

I picked this book to request from Netgalley simply because it had a Muslim character. I'm a big fan of diversity and always find a book about ten times more interesting if it has a person of another culture or just a different perspective in it. I don't know enough about Islam so I can't say how realistic Sophia is as a Muslim, but I can say that she was wonderfully British in her opinions on biscuits so they got that bit right. It was great to see how she was so religious while not having that define her entire personality. Sometimes authors portray religious people as having nothing to them but their faith, so I'm glad that this one didn't. 

This is definitely a book for fans of diversity and feminism. I would be really interested to hear a muslim's opinion on this book and Sophia.