Rituals of Belonging

<p><em>Rituals of Belonging</em> is a story for anyone who has ever entered a room and felt the quiet sting of rejection the glance that measures you before you speak the silence that makes you fade or the small gesture that reminds you that you do not belong. It is for those who have been labeled before being understood accused before acting and marked as the other for reasons deeper than language accent or birthplace.<br>This is a novel about the slow invisible ache of living between worlds about losing pieces of yourself just to be tolerated. Written by someone who has crossed both visible and unseen borders it captures the solitude of exile not of place but of the heart. Through lives shaped by displacement quiet sorrow and unspoken rejection it reveals how the longing to belong can become a wound that never truly heals.<br>In the raised eyebrow at the sound of your name in the frequent question that cuts Where are you really from? the book exposes the subtle cruelty of being seen as different.<br>You learn to smile to measure your words to blend in even as something within you bends a little more each time. Every word every silence every glance becomes a reminder that you are still the outsider.<br><em>Rituals of Belonging</em> is not a story about immigrants or citizens. It is about the exhaustion of constantly justifying your place the pain of shrinking yourself to be accepted and the quiet sorrow of knowing that no matter how much you give it might never be enough. It is a mirror of that pain honest intimate and deeply human.</p>