I'm sorry to say that this didn't work for me at all. But, I can say that there’s something very readable about Shamsie's books. She captures dialogue and tension really well. Both women show that they have the resilience and strength to overcome childhood obstacles and rise to the top of their professions, but towards the last third of the book, it seems so unauthentic and the organicness we got at the beginning really wanes. Just when events seemed to be heading towards a crescendo, with the success of Benazir Bhutto, the story jumps forward by three decades - the girls are in London with successful jobs which was nice to read about, but it just didn't have the flavour and intensity of the start of the novel. The first part of the book had a distinctive 'young adult' feel to it - the growth of the childhood friendship between Zahra and Maryam in spite of their differing social and political backgrounds. The second part of the book takes place three decades later in 2019 and this is where I felt the book became a complete let down. Shamsie's writing style changed and the characters became unrelatable and superficial.