The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto

“The indignities of loneliness were too many to catalogue and count.”

The tagline ‘how far would you go to escape your life?’ frames the novel, and is an interesting question to consider both before and after reading.

To some, this could be quite a controversial read as the story centres on three teens whose choices and lives eventually lead them to join ISIS. What’s quite disturbing is that Bhutto’s thorough characterisation and understanding of the complexities of religion, modern life, and teenagers the journey that her characters go on is utterly believable.

Sunny as a British national – living and born in Portsmouth – is probably the easiest to understand at first, but his character development is jaw-droppingly tragic to read. His battle with fitting in with British people in Portsmouth turns him to the internet where he discovers all of the tragedies of the past of ‘his’ people: “…Sunny discovered Malcolm X, another strong man persecuted and put down, finding the light of solidarity only in Islam. And it was then that Sunny began to devote himself full-time to looking at the heritage of his people, educating himself on the struggles of Islam and the centuries of battles fought over people’s souls. 

#FLODown: Through Sunny’s character the theme of history and the importance of family history runs throughout – he feels lost without any connection to his Indian side, and he does whatever he can to seek it out.

Words by Mollie Kate Cohen