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No Place To Call My Own
About the Book An intimate, arresting portrait of millennial angst in a mercurial, volatile world. Feeling trapped in a society that’s quick to undermine her—constantly making assumptions about her religion, sexuality, ambition, worth—Sophia plunges headlong into a journey of questionable decisions through her twenties. We follow her through cities and towns as she tries to make sense of the old while confronting the new. But each move trails chaos in its wake.
Restless and acerbic, she struggles to come to terms with the disintegration of her parents’ marriage, eerily mirrored in the political turmoil of twenty-first-century India. And crucial to Sophia’s story—which unfolds against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, the 2020 Delhi riots and a global pandemic—is her complex, thorny friendship with Medha, a queer artist with travails of her own.
How does one even begin to fit in when apathy becomes a mode of survival? How is it possible to truly belong when one feels estranged from oneself? Sophia’s journey is not just her own but that of any young woman who finds herself caught ‘in between’—unable to back down and refusing to conform—and who doesn’t quite feel rooted to one place or identity. No Place to Call My Own is an intimate, arresting portrait of millennial disquiet in a mercurial, volatile world. About the Author Alina Gufran is a writer and filmmaker whose fiction found its form during her time in India, Europe and the Gulf. No Place to Call My Own is her debut novel.
Restless and acerbic, she struggles to come to terms with the disintegration of her parents’ marriage, eerily mirrored in the political turmoil of twenty-first-century India. And crucial to Sophia’s story—which unfolds against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, the 2020 Delhi riots and a global pandemic—is her complex, thorny friendship with Medha, a queer artist with travails of her own.
How does one even begin to fit in when apathy becomes a mode of survival? How is it possible to truly belong when one feels estranged from oneself? Sophia’s journey is not just her own but that of any young woman who finds herself caught ‘in between’—unable to back down and refusing to conform—and who doesn’t quite feel rooted to one place or identity. No Place to Call My Own is an intimate, arresting portrait of millennial disquiet in a mercurial, volatile world. About the Author Alina Gufran is a writer and filmmaker whose fiction found its form during her time in India, Europe and the Gulf. No Place to Call My Own is her debut novel.
254 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 12, 2025
3.5 stars
March 11, 2025
-A Tussle Between Morality and Desire-
Review of 'No Place To Call My Own'
Quote Alert
'I’m not sure why I’ve carried the feeling of betrayal with me wherever I’ve gone—my expectation of it acting as a self-fulfilling prophecy.'
The book is glazed with a self-sabotaging wildness. But scratch that and it hides a sea of sadness and diffidence underneath. Desire and morality don't often go hand in hand: this is a life's truth the author bares many times with a subtle but provocative style.
Split between seven cities (only Mumbai gets divided into three sections) and ending just before the year that will always remain like a stained landmark in our lives-2020-, the story of Sophia throws the readers headlong into a failed love story. The guy is married now but the narrator can't stop herself from coveting him. Azhar is 'a man most affected by things that had never happened to him.' He remains like a spectre in the story, a catalyst if you may, changing everything while himself remaining unchanged.
Representing a film in war-torn Beirut with which she has no connection or investment, wondering where her home is while attending vapid parties that look like the ones she hopped onto in Delhi, watching threatening videos her ex sends by burning her pile of clothes, telling her she deserves the same fate, Sophia is hurtling through life in a gauze-like, dreamy, diaphanous haze, regretting her decisions whiie also going back to them, wondering if she sees herself in the choices she has made.
Her state of mind can be discerned from- 'Perhaps if I hadn't annihilated my soul by continuing to sleep with the man who treated me like a plaything, a shiny toy that was only good for its first few years, if I hadn't lied my way into a film festival I had no business attending; maybe then I could feel a sense of justified anger, the kind that could solidify and propel me into action instead of coagulating in me like poison.'
Mercurial and provocative but not predictable.
Review of 'No Place To Call My Own'
Quote Alert
'I’m not sure why I’ve carried the feeling of betrayal with me wherever I’ve gone—my expectation of it acting as a self-fulfilling prophecy.'
The book is glazed with a self-sabotaging wildness. But scratch that and it hides a sea of sadness and diffidence underneath. Desire and morality don't often go hand in hand: this is a life's truth the author bares many times with a subtle but provocative style.
Split between seven cities (only Mumbai gets divided into three sections) and ending just before the year that will always remain like a stained landmark in our lives-2020-, the story of Sophia throws the readers headlong into a failed love story. The guy is married now but the narrator can't stop herself from coveting him. Azhar is 'a man most affected by things that had never happened to him.' He remains like a spectre in the story, a catalyst if you may, changing everything while himself remaining unchanged.
Representing a film in war-torn Beirut with which she has no connection or investment, wondering where her home is while attending vapid parties that look like the ones she hopped onto in Delhi, watching threatening videos her ex sends by burning her pile of clothes, telling her she deserves the same fate, Sophia is hurtling through life in a gauze-like, dreamy, diaphanous haze, regretting her decisions whiie also going back to them, wondering if she sees herself in the choices she has made.
Her state of mind can be discerned from- 'Perhaps if I hadn't annihilated my soul by continuing to sleep with the man who treated me like a plaything, a shiny toy that was only good for its first few years, if I hadn't lied my way into a film festival I had no business attending; maybe then I could feel a sense of justified anger, the kind that could solidify and propel me into action instead of coagulating in me like poison.'
Mercurial and provocative but not predictable.
March 22, 2025
I have had the pleasure of having Alina in my social feeds for many years now. This book proves she understands that many agnsts and pains cannot be cured but must be shared in a serious cultural form. (As she writes in the last line of the acknowledgements: (T)o the reader, I hope this book finds you at just the right time.) Hopefully this isn't her last book.
April 12, 2025
Alina Gufran’s No Place to Call My Home is a tender, searing, and emotionally resonant novel that explores the complex intersections of identity, faith, mental health, and belonging. At its center is Sophia, a young woman raised in the affluence of Dubai, but whose life is anything but secure. Despite her privilege, Sophia grapples with a deep, persistent sense of displacement. She is a Muslim woman in a world eager to define and confine her—a world where her faith becomes a lens through which others judge, stereotype, and diminish her.
Sophia’s story unravels across the cities of Delhi, Beirut, Prague, Bombay, Chennai, Faridabad, Spiti, and beyond. She moves constantly, carrying with her the emotional weight of a fractured identity. Her decisions are often impulsive, but behind them is a desperate search for grounding—for a place or a person who will not ask her to apologize for who she is.
One of the most powerful threads in the novel is Sophia’s struggle to be seen beyond the assumptions made about her religion. Her Muslim identity becomes both a shield and a burden. In a political climate that is increasingly hostile, Sophia feels alienated not just by the country she belongs to, but by the spaces she inhabits—social circles, relationships, even her own family. The quiet fear of being misunderstood or reduced to a label constantly simmers beneath the surface.
Her romantic relationship with Azhar, filled with tenderness and heartbreak, becomes a turning point in her life. Their love ends in a painful abortion—one that leaves Sophia emotionally shattered. Her friendship with Medha, a bold and queer artist, offers her moments of refuge, but also serves as a mirror to her own hidden truths.
In one poignant moment, she attends the wedding of her childhood best friend, only to feel like a stranger in familiar company. It’s a quiet reminder of how much time and experience can change us—and how sometimes, returning “home” only deepens the sense of not belonging.
Sophia’s mental health struggle is delicately woven throughout the narrative. Her pain is often silent—masked by apathy, avoidance, and constant movement. Gufran portrays these struggles with subtlety, offering a deeply empathetic view of how invisible yet overwhelming such battles can be.
At its heart, No Place to Call My Home is about longing—for connection, for safety, and for identity in a world that often demands conformity. Gufran gives us a protagonist who is deeply flawed, deeply human, and quietly brave. Sophia’s journey speaks to anyone who has ever felt unseen or misread—especially those whose identities exist at the crossroads of gender, faith, and cultural expectation.
This is a novel that lingers—a poignant, powerful reminder that sometimes, finding “home” is not about a place, but about finally choosing to belong to yourself.
Sophia’s story unravels across the cities of Delhi, Beirut, Prague, Bombay, Chennai, Faridabad, Spiti, and beyond. She moves constantly, carrying with her the emotional weight of a fractured identity. Her decisions are often impulsive, but behind them is a desperate search for grounding—for a place or a person who will not ask her to apologize for who she is.
One of the most powerful threads in the novel is Sophia’s struggle to be seen beyond the assumptions made about her religion. Her Muslim identity becomes both a shield and a burden. In a political climate that is increasingly hostile, Sophia feels alienated not just by the country she belongs to, but by the spaces she inhabits—social circles, relationships, even her own family. The quiet fear of being misunderstood or reduced to a label constantly simmers beneath the surface.
Her romantic relationship with Azhar, filled with tenderness and heartbreak, becomes a turning point in her life. Their love ends in a painful abortion—one that leaves Sophia emotionally shattered. Her friendship with Medha, a bold and queer artist, offers her moments of refuge, but also serves as a mirror to her own hidden truths.
In one poignant moment, she attends the wedding of her childhood best friend, only to feel like a stranger in familiar company. It’s a quiet reminder of how much time and experience can change us—and how sometimes, returning “home” only deepens the sense of not belonging.
Sophia’s mental health struggle is delicately woven throughout the narrative. Her pain is often silent—masked by apathy, avoidance, and constant movement. Gufran portrays these struggles with subtlety, offering a deeply empathetic view of how invisible yet overwhelming such battles can be.
At its heart, No Place to Call My Home is about longing—for connection, for safety, and for identity in a world that often demands conformity. Gufran gives us a protagonist who is deeply flawed, deeply human, and quietly brave. Sophia’s journey speaks to anyone who has ever felt unseen or misread—especially those whose identities exist at the crossroads of gender, faith, and cultural expectation.
This is a novel that lingers—a poignant, powerful reminder that sometimes, finding “home” is not about a place, but about finally choosing to belong to yourself.
May 2, 2025
"No Place To Call My Own" by writer and film maker Alina Gufran is a thought-provoking novel that explores identity, relationships, and self-destruction through the life of Sophia, a woman caught between two worlds. Born to a Hindu mother and a Muslim father, Sophia's childhood is shaped by the tension between her parents' conflicting beliefs. Her upbringing is a balancing act—switching between namaste and salaam, navigating religious stereotypes, and witnessing her parents' crumbling marriage. As she grows older, this sense of duality follows her, leaving her constantly searching for a place where she truly belongs.
As Sophia enters adulthood, she aspires to be a filmmaker but struggles with practical realities like financial stability and societal expectations. Her inability to fit into academic and professional spaces pushes her further into reckless habits. Her self-destructive lifestyle—marked by fleeting relationships, substance abuse, and emotional detachment—dominates a large portion of the novel. While this phase may feel repetitive and frustrating, it reflects the inner turmoil of a woman spiraling without direction. Alina presents Sophia as a deeply flawed character, making it difficult at times to sympathize with her choices, yet her struggles remain undeniably real.
Just when the story seems to lose momentum, it takes a remarkable turn. The novel shifts focus from romantic entanglements to Sophia's complex relationship with her mother and best friend, Medha. Alina skillfully captures the raw emotions of mother-daughter conflicts, showing the pain and distance that often exist in such bonds. Similarly, the portrayal of female friendships is refreshingly authentic—far from the glamorous clichés, it is messy, intense, and deeply moving. In a gripping scene, a drinking game forces Sophia and Medha to confront their unspoken grievances, leading to a reconciliation that is imperfect yet profoundly heartfelt.
To sum up, "No Place To Call My Own" is about alienation—not just in personal relationships but also in the larger socio-political landscape. Sophia’s identity as a Muslim woman in India adds another layer to her struggles, particularly during moments of religious and political unrest. The novel brilliantly captures the loneliness and fear that come with feeling like an outsider, whether in one's family, career, or country. Through a mix of despair and hope, Alina tells a story that is both deeply personal and universally relevant, making this novel a compelling and necessary read.
As Sophia enters adulthood, she aspires to be a filmmaker but struggles with practical realities like financial stability and societal expectations. Her inability to fit into academic and professional spaces pushes her further into reckless habits. Her self-destructive lifestyle—marked by fleeting relationships, substance abuse, and emotional detachment—dominates a large portion of the novel. While this phase may feel repetitive and frustrating, it reflects the inner turmoil of a woman spiraling without direction. Alina presents Sophia as a deeply flawed character, making it difficult at times to sympathize with her choices, yet her struggles remain undeniably real.
Just when the story seems to lose momentum, it takes a remarkable turn. The novel shifts focus from romantic entanglements to Sophia's complex relationship with her mother and best friend, Medha. Alina skillfully captures the raw emotions of mother-daughter conflicts, showing the pain and distance that often exist in such bonds. Similarly, the portrayal of female friendships is refreshingly authentic—far from the glamorous clichés, it is messy, intense, and deeply moving. In a gripping scene, a drinking game forces Sophia and Medha to confront their unspoken grievances, leading to a reconciliation that is imperfect yet profoundly heartfelt.
To sum up, "No Place To Call My Own" is about alienation—not just in personal relationships but also in the larger socio-political landscape. Sophia’s identity as a Muslim woman in India adds another layer to her struggles, particularly during moments of religious and political unrest. The novel brilliantly captures the loneliness and fear that come with feeling like an outsider, whether in one's family, career, or country. Through a mix of despair and hope, Alina tells a story that is both deeply personal and universally relevant, making this novel a compelling and necessary read.
June 15, 2025
Let me start by saying that I loved this book to death. It's written beautifully, its intense, raw and brutally honest. It shakes you up in a way, you never would have imagined. 'Sophia' is an ideal character with whom some of us can accurately resonate. She is everything a woman is who comes from a broken family, dual lineage, traumatic upbringing and then some. She is someone who craves love and stability but finds it in all the wrong places be it toxic relationships, destructive lifestyle, so on and so forth. She's insecure, anxious and everything a woman is who wants to pave her own way, who wants to carve out a piece of the world for herself.
Sophia's character felt personal to me, i could resonate with her in the ways I cannot even begin to explain. Sophia is strong headed yet fragile. She is in constant search of home with no place to call her own. She fidgets through life as if she isn't meant to have hope, love and stability. The self deprecation felt real. Her struggles through relationships and life, her mindset and her friendships are explained brilliantly. The story line is astoundingly profound. It's complex yet soothing in its own way. All the chaos around the plot and the characters makes it more relatable and real. Her friendship with Medha makes absolute sense.
Last but not the least, I'd like to thank the author for writing such a beautiful book, I'm glad this book found me. This is gonna be with me for a long time.
Sophia's character felt personal to me, i could resonate with her in the ways I cannot even begin to explain. Sophia is strong headed yet fragile. She is in constant search of home with no place to call her own. She fidgets through life as if she isn't meant to have hope, love and stability. The self deprecation felt real. Her struggles through relationships and life, her mindset and her friendships are explained brilliantly. The story line is astoundingly profound. It's complex yet soothing in its own way. All the chaos around the plot and the characters makes it more relatable and real. Her friendship with Medha makes absolute sense.
Last but not the least, I'd like to thank the author for writing such a beautiful book, I'm glad this book found me. This is gonna be with me for a long time.
April 4, 2025
It seemed as though this book was written for me especially. We see Sophia's life through a series of almost flashbacks, which are choppy but make complete sense to me. I couldn't skim any of it, because I'd lose whatever train of thought Sophia was working through. This is a good thing. I did not like the ending, but I enjoyed everything else, and I confess to doing some research for better immersion.
June 7, 2025
I came across this book at the right point in my life, as someone struggling in my twenties with all of life’s changes, figuring out my career as an artist and facing turmoil in my friendships — this book has been deeply moving. It’s raw and the protagonist is morally gray which makes her more real. The novel explores growing older and understanding many facets of life in such a mundane yet deeply moving manner.
September 23, 2025
It’s not easy to get to know oneself. And that can only be achieved through tremendous effort and mindful actions.
No place to call my own is a bold exploration of a sense of belonging. And friendship.
It combines the circumstances of all the underdogs and sets them astray to unhinge themselves. It somewhat comes together in the end. Though abruptly.
I did enjoy reading it undoubtedly. My sense is that though, it may get lost overtime among many other similar plots in my mind.
No place to call my own is a bold exploration of a sense of belonging. And friendship.
It combines the circumstances of all the underdogs and sets them astray to unhinge themselves. It somewhat comes together in the end. Though abruptly.
I did enjoy reading it undoubtedly. My sense is that though, it may get lost overtime among many other similar plots in my mind.
October 2, 2025
I don't remember sitting with a book for as long as I did with this one. Nor because it was too complicated to read or I had less time for reading it.
It's a mirror really for all that's going on in our world and what it's doing to the younger generation. In the book, we follow a young protagonist who has to navigate these fractured times with all her vulnerability, intimacy, anxieties and beautifully broken heart.
I highly recommend it.
It's a mirror really for all that's going on in our world and what it's doing to the younger generation. In the book, we follow a young protagonist who has to navigate these fractured times with all her vulnerability, intimacy, anxieties and beautifully broken heart.
I highly recommend it.
February 22, 2025
The book draws you in from the first chapter after which it is very hard to put down. The book explores what it means to be alive in the world today and to be navigating your identity in the midst of this modern connected chaos. A must read, highly recommend!
April 6, 2025
A beautifully written book, with so many conversations and lines that made me go back and re-read them again. The protagonist is a bit unlikeable at times, but isn’t every human being unlikeable at some point in their lives?.
February 20, 2025
An excellent and fierce debut! Alina is a very talented writer with important things to say - which is rare. Excited to see what comes next
March 15, 2025
underlined a lot of passages, journaled alongside soph's thoughts. it was an unnerving yet pleasant reading experience.
May 23, 2025
A new age story with a woman in 30s.
February 20, 2025
I thought this book comes with a promise of a new voice in Indian writing in English. The story was guttural, self-indulgent and yet intensely alive. I write about the book while talking about Anne Carson's idea of space and femininity and much more in my review for Deccan Herald here- https://www.deccanherald.com/features...
April 10, 2025
Reading about Sophia felt like going through life with a friend by my side who is acutely self aware, often unlikeable, but always hard to ignore, and always hard to stay away from. I was immediately drawn to her voice and her constant quest to try and make sense of her own identity juxtaposed with the relentless difficulties of the world around her. Acerbic and self deprecating in an excellent way, Sophia’s voice compelled me to go back and reread sections of the book days after I’d finished reading it. This is a fierce debut and I can’t wait to see what Alina creates next.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews