SOURCE: Villarreal, Edit. “Feroza Goes Native.” Washington Post Book World 23, no. 50 (12 December 1993): 7.

In the following review, Villarreal comments that An American Brat is an “affecting, amusing, and enjoyable” novel about a young woman's coming of age and the immigrant experience in America.

Coming of age is never easy. Coming of age as a woman is even harder. But coming of age as a female immigrant in a foreign country may be the most difficult of all. For many women born into societies with restrictive social and political codes, however, immigration may be the only real way to come of age. In An American Brat, Pakistani-born novelist Bapsi Sidhwa reveals with a humorous yet incisive eye the exhilarating freedom and profound sense of loss that make up the immigrant experience in America.

Sidhwa begins her novel in Lahore, Pakistan. Feroza Gunwalla, a 16-year-old Parsee, is mortified by the sight...