Book Review: Good People

Title: Good People
Author: Patmeena Sabit

My Rating: 5

Genre: Literary fiction; mystery
Category: Novel
Published: February 3, 2026 (Crown)

Format: eBook
Date Started: February 19, 2026
Date finished: February 23, 2026

Summary:

The story follows the Sharaf family, Afghan refugees who land in Northern Virginia and build a life there. The family has four children. The two older ones, Omer and Zorah, grow up influenced by American culture while still carrying strong cultural influences from their parents’ home country. Omer figures his way through American society. Zorah struggles. Her father puts her on a pedestal as the daughter who’ll attend college and have a great career, but all she wants is to have fun and be with Sahil, the guy she’s in love with. When Zorah dies, the family lands in the court of public opinion, and everything the reader learns about what happened comes from the people around them: neighbors, friends, police, reporters. The Sharafs never speak for themselves.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this story. Reputation carries weight in a lot of cultures, and for the Sharafs, it carried everything. Zorah, growing up in America, didn’t understand that. And even if she had, she’d have known it didn’t apply to her—she was living in a different culture, the one she actually knew and understood. As far as her death goes, I believe that the parents had something to do with it. There’s a scene where a boy gets up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and sees headlights suddenly disappear. Knowing where the family had been, and knowing the tension around her, it made sense to me.

What I also liked about this book was that it was written in interview style and reminded me of the movie District 9. The movie is a completely different genre, but the interview style is the same.

Recommended for:

·  Book clubs (it’s built to be argued about).

·  Readers who like true crime and documentary formats.

·  Readers interested in immigrant family stories, or the gap between how a community sees a family and what’s actually happening inside it.