Someone Loves You by Mona Arshi

 

Ruby grows up in England in a Pakistani immigrant family.  She has her mother and father and an older sister.  When Ruby is six, she stops talking.  There is no physical reason but although her parents send her to several counselors, no one can convince her to speak again.  

Ruby loves her older sister more than anyone.  She has a best friend, David, who lives across the street.  She loves her mother but realizes early on that occasionally her mother disappears for several months at a time.  Later, she knows that these disappearances mean her mother has been hospitalized again for depression.

The novel follows Ruby's life as she grows.  She is hospitalized with a viral illness that almost kills her and leaves her legs unable to function for a time.  She watches her sister become popular and an artist who insists on her right to view and portray the world according to how she perceives it.  And over time, she works out a relationship with her mother that works for them both.

Mona Arshi has worked as a human rights lawyer but is known best as a poet.  That occupation shows through in this debut novel which is written in short, descriptive chapters.  The language is reminiscent of poetry and finds a way to demonstrate what is happening in Ruby's life with sparse, eloquent verbiage.  The main topic is coming of age and family relationships.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.