"Sorry for the Inconvenience" is a poignant and skillfully crafted memoir by Farah, spanning her freshman year in college and extending over a decade, interwoven with reflections from her childhood.

Farah, a Pakistani-American Muslim with immigrant parents, invites us into her life, revealing the complexities of her dysfunctional family, the deep bond with her siblings, and the unwavering support from her best friend. She explores her faith, navigates the tension between her dual identities and cultural expectations, and embarks on her writing journey.

The memoir often brought me to tears with its depiction of Farah’s struggles and her remarkable resilience, and I found myself rooting for her as she pursued her writing and attended a workshop where she met Rebecca, author of "Yellowface," "Babel," and "The Poppy War" trilogy.

I appreciated how Lewis & Clark Law School offered a mentor network for students of color, especially in Portland, where the population is predominantly Caucasian. Farah’s references to cases like Dred Scott v. Sandford and The Chinese Exclusion Act highlight the persistent issue of overt racism.

Her best friend’s dedication to understanding and respecting Farah’s faith, including fasting with her during Ramadan, was a testament to his steady and supportive presence in her life.

I find myself drawn to stories of grief, perhaps due to my work environment or the way these narratives highlight our capacity for love, hope, and appreciation for the everyday beauty of life despite the pain.

I look forward to experiencing the audiobook, narrated by Farah herself, and reading her novel, "It All Comes Back to You."

TW: Complicated Family Dynamics, Intergenerational Trauma, Emotional and Physical Abuse, Gaslighting, Eating Disorder, Death of a Loved One, Depression, Suicide, Grief, Racism

Favorite Quotes:
ᥫ᭡ "I don't believe in love at first sight. What even is that?  A person can't love someone they don't know.  Love is many things, but it isn't, by my definition, instant.  What I felt was more of an inevitable, imexplicable connection."

ᥫ᭡ "I wanted the kind of mom I'd see on TV, or the kind of South Asian mom who oiled their daughter's hair and smothered their children in kisses - whenever their child was sad. Or simply just because."

ᥫ᭡ "In many cases the question isn't just What are you?  The unspoken question they're asking is, What are you so I can figure out if I should be racist toward you or not?"

ᥫ᭡ "Immigrant parents, my own included, made sacrifices for the future of their children -- like leaving their countries behind to give their children more opportunity elsewhere.  An act of sacrifice, done out of love."

ᥫ᭡ "The way you have put a lot of thought into which school you want to attend, what career you want -- this is the kind of thought you need to put into who you're going to marry," he said. "More so, maybe.  These are the most important choices you make in life; the same way your school and career will help you go where you want to go, your partner will help you become who you want to be."
"You're still so young," Dad went on.  "You still have time. You can always focus on school until the right person comes along.  Then you'll know."

ᥫ᭡ Mom believed that love and happiness were a zero-sum game, that love was a finite resource to be earned from others. Others expect the best of love would swoop in and save them, like some big, dramatic storybook moment -- like a knight in shining armor rescuing  them in the nick of time. But even if Stephen's love had bolstered me in so many ways, so many times, I wasn't sure it was realistic to expect love to save you.
Love -- maybe love simply sees you in a room when no one else does.  Love was a paqt on the head at the end of the hard day, a kind word of acknowledgment in a world so damn hard to live in.  Love was refugee. Love was comfort. Love was ease. And, sometimes, that was enough to hold on to."

Thank you NetGalley and Mindy's Book Studio for the electronic readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

I decided to read this popular adult memoir to see how Islam was represented by the Muslim author, as someone's real lived life experience is not something I have any right to critique. Ultimately I enjoyed the book, I was pleasantly surprised how much Islam is contained and how it is presented. The book starts with a disclaimer that this is not a representation "of the Pakistani American Muslim experience," nor should it be "taken as a reflection of Islam." Which in most fictional books means haram acts are going to be normalized and that the book has an ax to grind, in this non fiction read though, it somehow was an apt mindset to read about a desi Muslim American, her Muslim family, and the ups, downs, details, traumas, and every day experiences of her life. Did I agree with it all, of course not, and readers won't either, but did I see familiar paradigms and relatable feelings, absolutely. The author is fairly young, writing a memoir clearly asserts she has lived and experienced things that most readers have not. It is an adult read, there is sexual assault, trauma, gaslighting, close male female relationships, alcohol, suicide, bisexuality, music, lying, death, mental health concerns, illness, and yet for me, reading it felt like a conversation (albeit fairly one way). The tone and writing style make it a fast read, sure at times I wanted to know more, or I felt like something was glossed over, or a tangent really not that entertaining, but just as if you were listening to someone talk, you might not want to pry, or interrupt, and that was how the book felt. I've read a decent amount of memoirs over the years, and stopped a few years ago when the Muslim written ones seemed to be heavy lesson preaching, predictable, or feeling like a list of grievances. I didn't find that with this book, at times it read like fiction with the character arcs, climaxes, emotional investment, and consistent side characters. The book is billed as a love story, and I think that is a bit misleading. Yes that is the framing, but if anything that thread is the least centered, her husband is a constant, no matter the label of the relationship, there isn't some spotlight or fireworks regarding their connection. The author identifies as Muslim, at times she notes she is struggling to pray, at other times she is reconnecting with her faith. At times she shares ayats from the Quran and Islamic concepts she finds comforting and reassuring, at other times she is angry at God. She doesn't other Islam, it is part of her background and who she is. (SPOILER) Regarding her brothers bisexual identity, she is angry at members of the Muslim community, but doesn't go beyond that. I feel non Muslim readers will see Islam in the author's life, but not assume her experience is a broad stroke for all Muslims. Similarly, Muslim readers will find things they disagree with, as being the author's experience, and carry on reading. The author keeps the focus on her and the quick pacing doesn't let one thread take up much space before moving on.

Farrah Memoire is undoubtedly my book of the month. It made me experience different emotions and shed a tear here and there, but it kept me reading. It made me think a lot about my background, the family I am building, the place of Faith in our home, and how we have managed loss/ grief. Farah's memoir is a journey that I found profoundly personal and thought-provoking.

I hadn't heard of Farah Naz Rishi before and I wasn't sure what to expect in this autobiography. I went on an emotional roller coaster ride with this book. Learning more about the life of a Pakistani family and the pressures that can be placed on the members of the family, you experienced the highs and low Farah went through. I was frustrated and heartbroken on her behalf and was so glad for her friendship with Stephen.
While the book started a little slow, it was an easy read. I want to say it was an enjoyable book, but that doesn't feel like the correct word given everything Farah went through.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

I was completely speechless after finishing this memoir. I don't personally know what it's like to be a child of an immigrant parent, but Farah Naz Rishi wrote about her experiences in great depth and gave me her perspective. She stripped down the triumphs, failures, love, and loss in her life. For her will and perseverance I am grateful. Reading about her life in raw detail and then rewarded in the end as an extra sweet note. She found love in the process. I appreciate her sharing her story. was completely speechless after finishing this memoir. I don't personally know what it's like to be a child of an immigrant parent, but Farah Naz Rishi wrote about her experiences in great depth and gave me her perspective. She stripped down the triumphs, failures, love, and loss in her life. For her will and perseverance I am grateful. Reading about her life in raw detail and then rewarded in the end as an extra sweet note. She found love in the process. I appreciate her sharing her story.

Okay, so Mindy Kaling's quote that "this story ripped my heart in two, had me grabbing for the tissues, and then put me back together again," set the bar a bit high. I definitely didn't have that reaction, which kind of stressed me out-- I kept waiting for something that wasn't happening and feeling different emotions in the meantime. I'm not even sure this is meant to be a tearjerker. Instead, it's an exploration of a woman's relationship with her immigrant parents. It's about the seemingly impossible expectations placed upon so many children (and especially the children of immigrants), the desire to please one's parents and yet to also live a life that is personally fulfilling. And these expectations and demands extend to society at large, one's own culture and extended family, encompassing everything from education to career to religious practices, to the circle of friends you choose, to relationship prospects. There are so many ways to be judged, so many ways to be found lacking. Rishi's story is tragic as she grapples with her tumultuous relationship with her mother and deals with the loss of essentially everyone close to her.
The audiobook version of this surprised me, as the author's voice wasn't at all what I expected (I hadn't seen her on Tik Tok until afterwards), and I felt there was a strange distance between the performance and what was on the page. That being said, after looking at her Tik Tok, I liked the audiobook version much more.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher and all opinions expressed are mine.

I should however state that it started a tad bit slow for me but it picked up eventually. The book is centered around Farah's college experience particularly the collegiate perspective on how one goes to college to learn and discover themselves and not necessarily fall in love. However that changes when she meets Stephen who is different from a guy her mother expects to marry. A great read on the power of love. Gripping is the word.

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Rating:3.5

I don't think saying I enjoyed "Sorry for the Inconvenience" is the correct phrase; instead, I felt it. Farah is heartbreakingly honest with her experiences and shares the most challenging moments of her life. We read about her dealing with generational cycles, cultural expectations, and complicated grief on her journey to figuring out what she wants life to look like. This was such an amazing read, and I plan to explore her fiction works!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an of this book for an honest review.

It's a YA novel come to life, sort of: in "Sorry for the Inconvenience", Rishi weaves a story of cultural expectations, family dysfunction, and grief...with an unexpected love story underpinning it all.

I'm not usually one much for trigger warnings, but if you like to know what you're in for here I do recommend checking out those warnings ahead of time. The cheerful cover belies the more harrowing parts of the story here (though kudos to the cover designer for the dogwood flowers); without going into too much detail here, there are layers and layers of loss. But also: throughout the story, the thread of Stephen, Rishi's best friend from college, who proves a steadying force again and again throughout the book...and who, when things were extra tough, offered Rishi yet another measure of security: a marriage of convenience, one that could stay a platonic partnership between friends—for as long as Rishi wanted.

I waffled a bit on my rating. There were some quite odd proofreading misses that took me out of the book; this would usually be normal (and not worth mentioning) for an ARC, but in this case the ARC was offered after the publication date, and I'd expect published books to have been through proofreading. But the story and its telling are gripping, and the way Rishi's background as a YA fiction writer comes through here is pretty fascinating. This isn't written for a YA audience, but if someone described the events of this book—with a few tweaks—and said that they were going to write a YA novel about those events, I'd say "Yup, that tracks." (Here I should maybe note that YA done right can tackle some wickedly heavy subjects.) It certainly doesn't make the harder material of the book easier to read, let alone live through, but it does make for a fast-paced, complex read with (what do you know) as classic a hero as one could hope for in a contemporary YA book. And as it happens, Rishi fictionalized at least part of her story with Stephen for a novel, and now I'm desperately curious to see how that version of the story goes.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

It is no exaggeration to say this is the most beautiful book I've ever had the pleasure of reading and has easily become my absolute favorite. There's not a single thing I did not like about this absolutely heart-wrenching story of family, loss, and love. I cried many times, but I sobbed a final time after finishing the acknowledgements, and just sitting with myself and all the emotions I had accumulated whilst being on this journey. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone, just please read it. Thank you so much to NetGalley for this ARC.

Thank you to Mindy’s Book Studio and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this heartfelt book.

I'm writing this as I wipe back tears. I pretty much cried all the way through this one. Between being way too relatable at times and just outright beautifully written, I could not have been happier to have read it. If you haven’t yet, go read it now. Bring tissues.

I have really been liking memoirs this year and this book did not disappoint. I highly recommend it to all memoir lovers. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Sorry for the Inconvenience is a beautifully written memoir from Farah Naz Rishi! This biography details Rishi's life from a young student to a prolific author. As the eldest daughter in a South Asian family, I was able to relate to some of Rishi's family relationships and life experiences. While the events of the memoir are heartbreaking, in way, this memoir was very healing and therapeutic for my own lived experiences. I loved the depiction of love in this novel--whether it between family, friends, and partners. Rishi's voice is strong, charming, and endearing, and I can't wait to read their future works!

For fans of I'm Glad My Mom Died, Sorry for the Inconvenience explores toxic family relationships, falling in love without realizing we are, marriage of conveniences, and losing a parent to cancer. There's signature humor and wryness all balanced with vulnerability. As a long time fan of Farah Naz Rishi, it's a privilege to read. Inspired by a viral TikTok, Sorry for the Inconvenience is tender. While it certainly touches on the story of the TikTok and marriage of convenience, it's also about all the events and ways we become the person we are. The little decisions necessary to be ready - and all the times we aren't.

Farah Naz Rishi, Michelle Zauner, and I (and a lot more people) all have one thing in common: a difficult relationship with our immigrant moms. therefore see: me bawling my eyes out for a honest-to-goodness half of the book. if and when you read this, i urge you to read it with or just listen to the audiobook, narrated by Farah herself. she is an excellent and very talented audiobook narrator and telling her own story (even if you’ve heard it from TikTok) makes the gut punch a little bit more real. i’ve known Farah’s story from the bits and pieces that she’s told on TikTok but to read it in an incredibly well-written memoir has been simultaneously an honor to learn more about her and a heartbreaking experience. but to walk with her along her journey as she learns about love and loss and all the while, falls deeply in love with the love of her life. Farah, i've learned so much about myself, faith, and what it means to look for your soulmate through this book and i deeply thank you for sharing your story with us. what an honor it has been to read it ❤️

a memoir told from the point of view of farah naz rishi, sorry for the inconvenience details her life from her freshman year at college to a little more than a decade after, with bits and pieces of her childhood mixed in.

freshman year of college, in a japanese civilization class, farah meets stephen, who at first glance, irks her for some reason. maybe because he came into class five minutes late. or maybe because he wore flip-flops and shorts in winter. after a group project, they slowly become friends, best friends, that play video games together and talk about everything and nothing. he starts reading and learning about islam and coparents the cat she adopts in her dorm.
a familiar struggle that i’m sure a lot of children of immigrants understand, especially in desi culture (their family is pakistani) is that parents expect their kids to choose a “practical” subject to study so that they have a “stable” career, both of which i put in quotes because there’s no such thing as a steady job, and every subject can be practical. nevertheless, you know i'm talking about careers like lawyers and engineers. farah wants to be a writer, and shaz wants to play piano - you can imagine how those conversations went.

although this book has a lot going on, the one consistent thing is how stephen is always there for her. whether as a background character or a supporting one, the one constant is him. even though i already knew they were still married in real life, it didn't spoil anything for me because this book is character-driven and not plot-driven.

in terms of writing, farah naz rishi has a way with words that had me crying every few pages. whether that was because so much of her story parallels my life, or because she’s just that talented, you decide (it can be both for the record). the little comments scattered around the book about how stephen deleted a dating app hours after she made him create a profile, how he’s never really dated, all culminated in the last chapter, as she has her epiphany about her feelings. the buildup didn’t disappoint, and i loved how it got less and less subtle as the book went on.

all in all, this is genuinely the best book i’ve read this year and i can’t wait to see what else farah writes.

Hauntingly moving, SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE by Farah Naz Rishi is a memoir about loss and love and how the two intersect.

I’m actually sobbing while writing this so sorry if it doesn’t make sense but here we go:

I just finished 5 seconds ago and this is one of the best books I’ve EVER READ.

Farah’s memoir was completely GUT WRENCHING, heartbreaking, powerful with moments of sweet tenderness sprinkled through I could cry all night. The way she wrote certain scenes you could feel her complete emotions right in your heart.

Being a Pakistani Muslim American myself I resonated so much with the description of Farah’s relationships specifically with faith and God.

I feel so honored to have read this and I just admire her resilience. Reading about her life, her relationships with her brother, parents & partner she takes you through her childhood to adulthood showcasing hardships & her growth while also making you fall in love with her love story as she is herself.

Reminding yourself that this is a memoir and how much she has lived through just leaves me in complete awe.

I’m so proud of you Farah!

Pls check TW’s before reading.