What do you say to a family that forces you into another condescending country for what you are, takes away all social relations you once had, forces you to marry someone you didn't love, and basically controls you? That’s what Naila went through. In Aisha Saeed’s Written in the Stars, Naila, a recently graduated high school Pakistani girl, had gone through a harrowing experience when she was caught with her boyfriend, Saif, at prom by her parents. Her parents however, had originally wanted to arrange her marriage to look better to other Pakistani parents and make sure she sticks with a partner. They decided they would take Naila and her brother, Imran, to Pakistan to experience the roots of her culture and meet with her family. This was devastating news to her since she was going to go to a good university, and she would miss out on it and may even lose her admission. Although Pakistan seemed nice, she later is horrified to find out she was there just to get married. Not wanting this, she plans with her cousin to escape, trying to find any way out. However, she is caught and forced to marry a problematic boy named Amin. In Aisha Saeed’s Written in the Stars, Saeed skillfully uses Naila’s devout observations, deep inner thoughts, and dialogue with other characters to show how Pakistani culture is different while exposing underlying issues in the culture and how it negatively affects Pakistanis.

In the novel Written in the Stars, it is constantly littered with misogynistic views to Naila to show the issues in Pakistani culture regarding women and how it shows them to be weaker than men. When Naila is looking for the nearest bus in Pakistan to escape, she asks a local Pakistani boy for directions and when answering, the boy said, “I see your movies from America, this is not a bus like that. This bus is not a bus for a girl like you! No, this is a big metal thing, and not enough seats for each person” (Saeed 125). The boy indirectly says that women are softer, and men can endure more rough tasks, connecting to the idea of traditional gender roles in Pakistani culture makes women weaker than men, the idea of which weakens women’s power which is a bad issue in Pakistan. When talking to a house servant Feiza, the novel highlights the gender roles for women in Pakistan and living to others' expectations. Another scene is when Naila is talking to Feiza, a servant for the house she is in, Feiza says, “Life is full of sadness. It is part of being a woman. Our lives are lived for the sake of others. Our happiness is never factored in” (Saeed 255). This quote actively highlights the meaning of being a woman in Pakistan is living life to please others like your elders by doing whatever they say you can do, and it is also hinting that the boys in Pakistan can live their own life and follow their own dreams since Feiza only mentions women. This shows how unfair it is for women in Pakistan. At one of the main conflicts of the book, it shows how easy it is for a woman to get sexually abused in Pakistan. In another darker scene, Naila is getting sexually assaulted by Amin in the first month, “My arms are pinned behind me. My body is racked with sobs as he pulls at my clothing. Screams are useless; they mean nothing in a home of conspirators” (Saeed 186). This shows, seeing how it happened in the first month, that husbands can do many terrible things to their wife and not get in trouble since Amin was fine after this and raped Naila without her consent, which is obviously an extreme issue that brings women down even more. 

In certain scenes involving Naila’s family, Naila is being forced into an arranged marriage without her consent, showing how a main issue in Pakistani culture is being forced with someone you don’t love through arranged marriage. When Naila is secretly listening to her parents talk about her and debate on the issue that the good college she is going to is too far away from them, they are suggesting her to not take as many classes so she can commute (Saeed 9). This shows that they want to control Naila and would rather sacrifice some of her education to get that control that they desire over her, meaning they can now try to force her to marry. Similarly, Naila overhears her mother say, “What if she went to a community college for the first two years? There is no harm in that. Maybe, in the meantime, we will find a good proposal for her, and she can get married” (Saeed 9). This shows that Naila’s parents would make her education worse to force her to marry by having her go to community college, therefore, the control they really desired was the ability to arrange and manipulate her marriage and make sure she won't pick any boys at a university that’s far away since they cannot control it. In another scene, Selma explains both what Naila’s family had been doing while she was in Pakistan, picking out a husband, which was decided just on first impressions and how they acted in the dinner parties, and she told Naila that she would be staying much longer in Pakistan (Saeed 100-102). This provides an insight to the reader that Naila might not like her arranged husband and this husband may be harmful to her since Nailas’ family is only going on first impressions and how they acted during the dinner dates. Finally the fact that Naila is forced to marry Amin through being drugged by her own uncle and having the marriage papers signed for her makes the reader understand that arranged marriages being forced is harmful to the victim because she was drugged without consent and she is now forced to live with a man she doesn’t know for the rest of her life. She is forced to live as another person than she wants, showing a bad issue that can happen in Pakistan. This is shown after Naila tried to escape and got drugged by her own uncle in the quote, “I bend over, heaving; water trickles down my chin. Almost instantly, I feel hazy. The drink. He’s drugging me” (Saeed 141). The quote during the arranged wedding ceremony when Naila doesn’t want to sign the wedding papers also conveys this message, “Thick hands push the pen toward me. I flatten my palm, but someone pushes my hands together, forcing my fingers around the pen. Gripped by the elbow, pushed down my shoulders, I watch my hands make the motions, incoherent ink writing out the semblance of a name. My name” (Saeed 146). 

Throughout Written in the Stars, there is a deep message through the use of Nailas family showing the issue of bad reputation/judgment which negatively affects Pakistanis because their social status goes down and how her parents think that only they could make the right decisions for Naila also showing they care for the judgment of others. Early in the book, when Naila and Saif were just caught at the prom dance, her father says, “It seems you weren’t worried about school when you decided to take this families reputation and run it through the mud” (Saeed 32). This implies that Naila’s parents have already built this image of their family, and they believe something as little as prom would absolutely ruin it and cause judgment for the family from other Pakistani parents. It also shows how much Naila’s, and other parents care more about their judgment of them than Naila’s happiness since her dad said that she is bringing the family’s reputation down. Even earlier, when Naila was talking to her mom, her mom said, “You can choose what you want to be when you grow up, the types of shoes you want to buy, how long you want your hair to be. But your husband, that’s different. We choose your husband for you” (Saeed 11). By Naila’s mom saying that they can choose her husband, it proves that Naila's parents believe that they are making the correct decision to not be judged by other parents. Finally, in a scene after Naila tried to escape Pakistan, her dad is talking down on her, “Look what you are doing to us! For generations my family lived in this village. People looked up to us. They came to resolve their disputes. And now? The respect we built up over the generations, you are trying to ruin all of it!” (Saeed 137). This shows how Naila’s family have had a good reputation over the years and how much it matters to them that they keep it. This means if someone apart of a family does a terrible thing, then the whole reputation of the family comes crumbling down showing a real issue in Pakistani culture since it's not fair. 

In Aisha Saeed’s Written in the Stars, Saeed uses Naila’s observations, thoughts, and dialogue with other people to show how Pakistani culture is different while exposing hidden issues in the culture and how it severely affects Pakistanis. Naila is forced to marry Amin through being drugged by her own uncle and having the marriage papers signed for her makes the reader understand that arranged marriages being forced is harmful to the victim because she was drugged without consent, and she is now forced to live with a man she doesn’t know for the rest of her life. There are many issues with Pakistani culture that aren’t fair to some people. These issues get innocent people in trouble with family, friends, or lovers and can end very long relationships. It can also harm an innocent person with emotional, physical, and sexual damage. On an Amnesty article, a global movement for human rights around the world, states that, “Marginalized communities in Pakistan continue to face discrimination in both law and practice, on grounds of their gender, religion, nationality, and sexual orientation and gender identity. Under Pakistani law, a woman’s testimony is deemed “half” of that of a male witness. Reforms to raise the legal age of marriage of girls, from 16 years to 18 years, were blocked by the Council of Islamic Ideology” (Pakistan: Economic, social and cultural rights under attack).