If you have bought this book as a guide to getting rich, we are already cut from the same cloth, part of the middle class carrying aspirations of improving our financial status in an underdeveloped or developing country. However, general wisdom offers a piece of advice that posits: “never judge a book by its cover.” Anyone aspiring to read this book should keep in mind the literal meaning of this proverb.

Mohsin Hamid’s “objective self-help book” discusses various political themes that convinced me to write a review of an otherwise literary work. It perfectly portrays what life in a developing country looks like. Therein lies an underlying message: self-help books often ignore the context, ground realities, and systemic inequalities of their audience while offering generic advice such as “hard work” and “perseverance” for the pursuit of dreams. To borrow Karl Marx’s terms, this inculcates a false consciousness in the hard worker of a less developed setting.

The book, as I mentioned, contains certain political themes that provided the rationale for me to write this review. I will review the book through the lenses of neoliberalism, structuralism, consumerism, postcolonialism, and feminism. I will assess how these thought systems intersect to perpetuate aspirations of wealth while remaining shallow at the core. After a brief synopsis of the book, I will enlarge upon these themes and relate the novel to them.

Plot:

Mohsin Hamid employs a second-person narrative to chart the life of an unnamed protagonist born in a rural village on the periphery of a large, unnamed urban center, arguably Karachi, given contextual clues such as slum settlements, scarcity of clean water, weak governance, and the presence of religious student organizations. The protagonist’s family, already economically strained, relocates to the city in pursuit of better opportunities, eventually settling in a single-room dwelling within a slum. This move exposes him to the contradictions of urban life, fostering a desire for socioeconomic advancement.

Benefiting from his position as the youngest child, the protagonist receives an education up to the university level. In the meantime, he develops a romantic interest in a similarly ambitious young girl, referred to as the “pretty girl,” who eventually leaves the slums to........

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