This could so easily be a ‘poor me’ or ‘my crap life’ autobiography but it’s not. It’s much more a tale of survival, hope and determination to make a difference. It’s not about looking for sympathy or punishing those who’ve done her wrong – instead it’s much more about showing that there’s still a lot of honour crime going on in the UK and that just because we’re surrounded with positive images of British Asian life, it doesn’t mean that all of the horrors of the old ways have gone away. It’s also a way for Sanghera to publicise the charity she set up to deal with these crimes. In 21st-century Britain, there are still things being done to women that seem positively medieval. It’s also a tale of how no matter what your parents do to push you away, they’re still your mum and dad and that’s such a fundamental connection that you can’t just leave it behind you. After three decades of working with survivors this book offers a different take on trauma illustrating how trauma influences the brain and the body – negatively impact ing every aspect of cognitive functioning from self-control to trust to permitting pleasure.

She’s still reeling from the blow of a gut-punch break up and grieving the death of a loved one. But that’s not it. I was an adolescent when I first came across the letters of St Paul. Though I had been raised Greek Orthodox, at 13 I had joined an evangelical church in the hope that God would banish my shame. The shame of being different. The shame of hurting my immigrant parents’ honour. The shame of being gay. At that age, all I could hear from Paul was his admonishment in his first letter to the Corinthians that my homosexuality would banish me for ever from God’s love and grace. I battled with that for over two years before finally abandoning my faith. It was a relief to declare myself atheist, and a relief to begin the slow, difficult process of extricating myself from shame. I’m not a fan of the ‘Poor me’ autobiography genre. Mostly I find such books dull, embarrassing and often a bit manipulative. Some of them I just don’t believe and suspect are padded for sympathy. I’m not, therefore, the sort of person who reads this sort of book. What I find particularly interesting is trying to understand what it’s like to be caught between two cultures – the culture of your parents and the countries they’ve left behind and the culture of your birth country where they’ve settled. Perhaps it’s about a sense of belonging and fitting in that most people crave regardless of where they’ve come from.

She’s cried all her tears, mastered her crow pose and thrown out every last reminder of him. But that’s not helping.

The novel unfolds through six interconnected sections, each adding another layer to the tale of this haunting couple. Births, deaths, illness, and discovery merge to form a poignant testimony of youthful love and unwavering marital commitment. This is an important example of how we can all move past the shame we feel. What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break The Silence (Non-fiction) by Michele Filgate Beautifully written Filgate writes, “Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.” Our relationships with our mothers are often the relationships that we replicate with others, particularly close ones and in working this relationship out do we work out the other ones, bringing hope, relief and healing.

Ironically, the habits we follow to reduce our shame, are induced by shame in the first place. The author, John Bradshaw, drank heavily to get away from his shame, yet the more he drank, the closer to shame he felt. Jas tries to rekindle her relationship with her family after her daughter's birth but things were never the same again. Her failed relationships, marriages and bad decisions were what made her the strong woman that she is now. When her sister Robina commits suicide, she promises to help women who are pushed in to forced marriages. Her organization Karma Nirvana has been assisting thousands of women ever since. Jas's story is not one of victimization but is of survival. I could never understand her mother's cold behaviour, about the fact that parents can be so ruthless in the name of religion and honour. This book provides a fascinating insight into the human ability to survive in the harshest of conditions, making sense of tough situations and finding our purpose in life. A 'shame' is indeed what she claimed having become, growing up in a Indo-Pakistani community of Derby, rejected by her family when she was barely 16. Why? Simply because, and unlike her sisters, instead of accepting an arranged marriage by her parents according to strict Sikhs traditions she preferred to run away with her then boyfriend (an 'untouchable'), despite attempts to keep her sequestrated.