Shackled to my Family Paperback – July 30, 2015

This is not a piece of literal gold, in fact it was poorly written. Despite this problem Miss Younis managers to illustrate and communicate her story: she's a twin born and raised in the England to a strict Muslim Pakistani family where, along with her 5 sisters suffered tremendous amounts of abuse from their parents, whilst her 2 brothers were given preferential treatment due to their gender. Despite the deaths of her parents, the cycle of abuse and restrictions continued implemented by her older sisters. At 16 her family arranged a trip to Pakistan under the guise that they were visiting their parents graves to pay respects, only for it to turn out to be a shopping trip for husbands for Younis and her twin sister Aisha. Having British citizenships made them ideal brides for potential suitors as it enhanced one's status in the community. Aisha was soon engaged to a cousin. And after rejecting a marriage proposal from Aisha's fiancé's overzealous younger brother, Younis was arranged to marry her poor, unemployed and illiterate father's cousin's son, Rizwan despite her protests. From the onset she knew that her fiancé's family saw her as nothing more than a meal ticket to alleviate them from poverty and getting their son to England. She agreed to the marriage on the consensus that Aisha and herself would be allowed to attend college. At college she meets her boyfriend Tariq via a chat site, and embark on a risky situation posing serious consequences if caught. Despite the precautions taken to keep the relationship clandestine her younger brother Abdul discovers and eventually betrays the sisters' secret. Knowing that Aisha and herself were in danger of either being sent back to and abandoned in Pakistan to get married to their resented arranged partners, or killed for besmirching the family honour by interacting with an unrelated man. The sisters flee and go into hiding with Tariq's assistance, enduring threats and emotional blackmail from their family.Their bravery and courage is commendable, and how they found solace and strength from one another to attain independence and freedom after being disowned by their family. Younis should consider herself lucky that she has Aisha with her for emotional support, to which she admits, as many girls and women in her situation whom have fled from their homes become depressed and distraught due to loneliness as a result of their families disowning them or prevailing death threats. Sympathetic family members are often reluctant to communicate out of fear of being ostracised, hence most communications are done in secret. I wish them well in their future endeavours, and hope that they'll remain safe. If you want to know more about women in these kinds of situation I would recommend reading Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera.

Born and raised in England in a strict Muslim Pakistani family, the culture brought with them ruled their lives. As girl children, she and her sisters were subject to both physical and verbal assault frequently. Both parents died young, but control over Salina and her twin sister was taken over by her two older sisters who even arranged marriages for them with cousins in Pakistan. Eventually the twins left home, but their family ties are shattered and the shadow of the way they were brought up lingers and makes their freedom less joyful than it should be.

Another book of mistreatment of Muslim women! What a mess! The book was written with too many irrelevant details and very long winded. Got tired of it. The end is too short without letting the reader know how everything worked together to get you to your final destination and your new life.

I am 65, and I have a Master's in Psych Mental Health Nursing , and I have been in Nursing for over 45 years here in the U.S. I have been a devout feminist for about 45 years, and I come from an extremely abusive childhood, and I saw my mother being horribly abused and kicked around by my biological father . (He broke her tailbone when she was 7 months pregnant with my little sister). I also went through a very abusive romantic relationship with my first boyfriend when I was 21 with my Egyptian/Muslim boyfriend. I have always had a passion toward helping and protecting women and children from abusive, sadistic, bulling men as exemplified in Samina's family. I could only put this book down to go to work as a nurse, go to bed, eat, drink, sleep. I am going to start buying the audio books so I can listen while eating, working, driving, drinking!!! I always adore any publication where "good" wins "over" evil. I would love to tell Samina that what is also happening in this case is "good mental health" winning out over "Poor mental health"!!!! I strongly recommend this book for everyone who truly wishes to become more enlightened in understanding those formidable, fatal issues that females face in Islam!!!! I am Pamela S. Indo, RN. MSN, Pssych Mental Health Nursing, John is my husband

The storyline was very interesting but too many details were left out. I was hoping the end of the book would tie things together or there would be an epilogue p, however there wasn’t.

I gave it a 4 star because of the very quick ending. I find it interesting to read of other cultures. It also makes me feel grateful for what I have.

I read the book twice because it was so interesting. (yes there were grammatical errors, but it didn't take away from the story) I thought it was enlightening how Muslims live. It seems like a religion of control and hatred . I'm a Christian , which is about a God of love. God loves and cherishes each one of us. I cannot understand why anyone would cling to a religion of being a Muslim. Also, I found it very disturbing to learn about a culture that values men over women. In Christianity, men and women are equal in God's eyes. We're all precious. As an American, we cherish and are willing to die for our freedom. I applaud the twins in this story who turned their backs on such a cruel lifestyle and chose freedom. Freedom is wonderful. I also hated the tradition in her family where arranged marriages were the norm. I love America where we can choose who we marry, or we can choose to not marry at all. I really applaud the writer. I think she made the right choice. Freedom is definitely worth giving up your family for. Freedom is everything. It's worth fighting and dying for.

It's true story so I felt really sorry for the author, as she's telling the readers about her life and her daily issues with her family. Coming from a typical backwards Asian family who is being forced into arranged marriage. You think her story would improve but it just got bad to worst. The author repeats herself her a lot. By the middle you think she's dealing with her depression. That's why she wrote this for herself, like a diary or therapy. God knows how it got published, this book was written so poorly. You get lost with so many names and who's related to who. I really hate to say this, but I didn't enjoy this book.

Would have liked to know a bit more about how life was after she left the family. This was condensed into maybe 2 pages. The book was enjoyable, an easy read but it's amateurish. It's sad how some woman are treated in the so called name of Islam. It's not what Islam is about. I'm glad Samina was able to escape and hope she's found happiness.

I know her personally and regard her as a friend. I have so many questions to ask although I wouldn't awaken the trauma she has endured. Sam has never spoke of her family apart from her twin sister, whom I know she is very close to. However, she speaks of her journey since leaving her family. In my opinion, her family's only shame is their own. She is remarkable, strong, and such a breath of fresh air...always bubbly and smiling...You would never know, I never would've guessed! She will make an amazing Nurse and should continue to tell her storey.

After reading 'Shame' by Jasvinder Sanghera and 'Belonging' by Sameem Ali, both excellent books on the subject of forced marriage, along with 'Shamed' by Sarbjit Kaur Athwal regarding the honour killing of her sister in law and also a very inspiring and well written book I had high hopes for 'Shackled to my Family' by Samina Younis.Unfortunately this book is a very poor relation to the previous mentioned books, very poorly written, with no cohesion or flow, and as a result it is very difficult to get into and root for the writer and her sister.Though I have nothing but respect for a woman who has clearly escaped a forced marriage and violent family the story does feel one sided and without a clear end point, in fact the book ends on a particularly low note. After taking us through the first 16 years of her life in detail the end feels rushed and incomplete.It is for these reasons not a book I can recommend nor will re read and do not feel it should be a paid for book at all. 1/5, I feel bad saying I hate it but I really, really didn't enjoy it and only finished it out of hope it would get better. It didn't.

I really didn't like this book. I feel guilty to the author, Samina, for saying this, because I'm sure that she's been through a hard time. But, to be honest, after a few chapters full of full stops, and no other punctuation, I found her book incredibly boring and rambling, so I never got to find out what a hard time she'd had. I'm really interested in this genre, after reading 'A Fathers Betrayal', by Gabriella Gillespie; Maybe Samina needs to tell her story to a ghost writer.