How We Met: A Memoir of Love and Other Misadventures

(Paperback)

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You cant choose who you fall in love with, they say.
If only it were that simple.

Growing up in Walsall in the 1990s, Huma straddled two worlds school and teenage crushes in one; the expectations and unwritten rules of her familys south Asian social circle in the other. Reconciling the two was sometimes a tightrope act, but she managed it. Until it came to marriage.
Realising that marriage arranged or otherwise cannot be the all-consuming purpose of her life, Huma learns to start focusing on herself. And then she meets someone. Neither Pakistani nor Muslim nor brown, and therefore technically not suitable at all. When your worlds collide, how do you measure one love against another

Reviews

'A sweet, touching memoir about family, faith and love. Theres a purity and simplicity to Humas writing, as she attempts to reconcile the sprawling weight of expectation with her own desire for a contained but free life. But what does a life on her own terms look like What even are her own terms A consolation to others who have trod this very path, enlightening for those of us who havent, youll be rooting for not just Huma, but for everyone she loves too.' Pandora Sykes

'Qureshi's writing is so frank and clear-eyed that I felt like I was sitting opposite her, being told her story. I loved every minute.' -Laura Pearson, author ofI Wanted You To Know

'Every page radiates Huma's love for her family, for her emerging self, and for the possibilities of a life more fully lived' -Leah Hazard, author ofHard Pushed: A Midwife's Story

"I just loved loved loved loved How We Met. A love story about panic, faith, family, duty, living on your own, work, grief and trust. It delves into love and politics in the British South Asian community and left me beaming." - Nell Frizzell, author ofThe Panic Years

'It's a beautiful love story told with grace. I found it painfully relatable and am so glad this book exists, especially for young women currently lacking the blueprint to trust and empower themselves before opening up to love. At once poignant, empathetic and funny.' -Zeba Talkhani, author ofMy Past Is A Foreign Country

'HOW WE METencompasses the kind of love story you'd expect as well as several you might not: it's about the love of a couple but also the love of a family. It's about a love of culture and faith but also a love of finding new paths and of remaking. Huma Qureshi tells the story of her great loves with generosity and tenderness that will grab readers by the heart.' -Jean Hannah Edelstein, author ofThis Really Isn't About You

'How We Metis a wonderful read - a memoir of grief, becoming and true love. Huma Qureshi is a writer with a sharp eye and a romantic heart.' -Katherine May, author ofWintering

'How We Metis the book I, and countless women of similar heritage, have been waiting our whole lives for. I cried, and laughed out loud as I recognised myself in so much of Huma Qureshi's story.

The book is about Huma and how she met and married her husband Richard, but it's more than that, it's about trying to do 'the right thing' in a shifting world, where you are all at once at home, and also somehow alien. It's about being the child of immigrants, it's about dreams, about motherhood, and it is about familial love, in its many forms. It's such a beautiful book of quiet confidence, and deserves to be read widely.

Huma is a huge talent, and a skillfull storyteller with an eye for an exquisite turn of phrase. I'm sure this memoir will be a huge success. It certainly deserves to be.' - Saima Mir, author ofThe Khan

"This beautiful, romantic memoir grabs you from the first page and won't let you go. Told with heart, wit and quiet restraint, How We Met is the story of how we can transcend the expectations of others and arrange our own happiness in life and in love." -Viv Groskop

"A beautiful, refreshing and honest memoir about family, love, inheritance and loss" - Nikesh Shukla, author ofBrown Baby

Author Bio

Huma Qureshi is an award-winning writer and journalist, and contributor to The Best Most Awful Job: Twenty Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood (2020). A former Guardian reporter, she has also written for The Times, Independent, Observer, Grazia, New Statesman, and The Huffington Post. She is a regular contributor to BBC2s Pause for Thought and has appeared as a contributor on BBC Womans Hour, BBC London, BBC Breakfast and the BBC Asian Network. She is the winner of the 2020 Harpers Bazaar Short Story Prize.