India, July 13 -- What happens when a book arrives at your doorstep, written in your name, but not by you? In The House of Girls, writer Sonia Rafeek spins a layered, metafictional tale where fiction and reality blur. Translated from Malayalam into English by Ministhy S, the novel follows Nazia Hassan - a Malayali woman living and working as a hospital receptionist in Dubai - who receives a mysterious book, Bait Al Banat (House of Girls). The mystery of who authored the book is central, but it's not the only intrigue here. As Nazia begins reading, the reader too is drawn into the parallel world of three sisters, Mariam, Soraiyya, and Shamsa. Unmarried women living in Dubai's Gold Souk in 1959, they are forever relegated to the epithet of girls due to their marital status. These characters are loosely centred around the women of the Bait Al Banat Women's Museum in Dubai (UAE). The museum, created to archive and honour Emirati women's contributions, histories, and lived experiences, plays a silent yet present part in the historiographic metafiction. The novel's structure - stories nested within stories - gives a perspective of Nazia's eyes to the readers, aligning our curiosity and confusion with hers. However, the non-linear narrative falters, the pacing stutters, and the central mystery stretches longer than necessary. The payoff, when it comes, just cuts the mark for being emotionally and thematically satisfying. Past and present love encounters inform the book. While lone, unmarried women are at the centre, they are not stereotyped, and the trope is not overused to the point of exhaustion. These women's entanglements with men (platonic, romantic, or filial) are seen as complex parts of their being. The author captures the nuances of cultural silencing without turning her characters into case studies. This novel isn't loud. It's a quiet reckoning about what women carry, what they inherit, and how they sometimes break the frame to finally be seen. Title: The House of Girls Author: Sonia Rafeek Translator: Ministhy S Publisher: Rupa Publications Price: Rs.395...