Margins
Washes, Prays book cover
Washes, Prays
2020
First Published
3.98
Average Rating
96
Number of Pages

RBC Bronwen Wallace Award winner Noor Naga's bracing debut, a novel-in-verse about a young woman's romantic relationship with a married man and her ensuing crisis of faith. Coocoo is a young immigrant woman in Toronto. Her faith is worn threadbare after years of bargaining with God to end her loneliness and receiving no answer. Then she meets her mirror-image; Muhammad is a professor and father of two. He's also married. Heartbreaking and hilarious, this verse-novel chronicles Coocoo's spiraling descent: the transformation of her love into something at first desperate and obsessive, then finally cringing and animal, utterly without grace. Her best friend, Nouf, remains by her side throughout, and together they face the growing contradictions of Coocoo's life. What does it mean to pray while giving your body to a man who cannot keep it? How long can a homeless love survive on the streets? These are some of the questions this verse-novel swishes around in its mouth.

Avg Rating
3.98
Number of Ratings
227
5 STARS
38%
4 STARS
34%
3 STARS
17%
2 STARS
9%
1 STARS
2%
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