Een liefdeshuwelijk

by Monica Ali, Nadia Ramer (Translator)

Yasmin Ghorami heeft veel om dankbaar voor te zijn: een fijne familie, een veelbelovende carrière als arts en een knappe verloofde, Joe. Als hun trouwdag nadert maken Yasmins ouders kennis met Joe’s moeder, een vrijgevochten feministische medialieveling. Deze door Yasmin gevreesde ontmoeting is het begin van een duizelingwekkende reeks gebeurtenissen waarin al Yasmins verwachtingen – en die van de lezer – op hun kop worden gezet.

Rond Yasmin en haar familie bewegen zich allerlei personages, van de briljante jonge advocaat Rania die via halaldating aan de man probeert te komen tot de excentrieke 96-jarige mevrouw Antonova die maar liefst vijf keer getrouwd is geweest. Samen vertellen zij dit met veel humor geschreven, allesomvattende verhaal over immigratie en klassenverschillen, racisme en feminisme, trauma en verslaving, ouders en kinderen, maar toch vooral over liefde en seks, in al hun complexe verschijningsvormen.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Family, Audiobook

547 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 3, 2022

About the author

Monica Ali is a British writer of Bangladeshi origin. She is the author of Brick Lane, her debut novel, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003. Ali was voted Granta's Best of Young British Novelists on the basis of the unpublished manuscript.

She lives in South London with her husband, Simon Torrance, a management consultant. They have two children, Felix (born 1999) and Shumi (born 2001).

She opposes the British government’s attempt to introduce the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. She discusses this in her contribution to Free Expression Is No Offence, a collection of essays published by Penguin in 2005.

Reviews

[Lisa of Troy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Editor Needs to Give Some Tough Love Here

Yasmin and Joe are two doctors who are engaged to be married. Their families are quite different. Yasmin is part of an Indian family and is a second-generation doctor while Joe was raised by his mum, Harriet, a world-famous feminist. However, both Yasmin and Joe are harboring secrets. Will their love survive?

This book was incredibly boring. I am reading an advance copy so keep in mind that some things might be changed subsequent publication. So with that disclaimer….

At the beginning of the book, it took 16 pages just for the family to get out the door and meet Harriet. 16 jumbo pages on the world’s largest eReader. The beginning should be completely rewritten because it failed to grab my attention.

Additionally, the paragraphs were far too long. For example, when the characters engaged in dialogue, it felt stilted. The conversation was more like a monologue with each character going on and on. Usually, most people have a ping-pong, back and forth of words. In this case, the book did not flow naturally, and it did not have a conversational tone.

There were several characters and sections that I would have cut from this book. Melissa, David Cavendish, and Mrs. Antonova should all be removed from the book. Melissa is the therapist’s wife, and she was mentioned 16 times. We never actually meet her. David Cavendish is another character who was really boring and did not add much value to the book, but he was mentioned at least ten times. And then we come to Mrs. Antonova. She is a patient from the dementia ward who was mentioned a whopping 64 times (Thanks for the search feature, eReader!).

Most of the sections pertaining to the hospital were boring. It felt like the author was trying to capture the vibe from the hit TV series, House, but the effort fell flat. This last year, I spent about three weeks in the hospital. Maybe in the UK they do things different, but the doctors did not hang out with me, telling me all about their personal life. Not even once.

If you read this book because Harriet is a feminist, you will be very disappointed. She is a caricature of feminism and is pretty much the embodiment of all of the stereotypes that feminists have been fighting against. Harriet does very little of real consequence in the book and has boring conversations about liberal guilt.

It is difficult for me to even classify this book, because it seemed to be trying to accomplish many things and did not have a strong identity. Is it a romance? Is it about racism? Is it about hospitals being underfunded? Is it about not judging a book by its cover? Is it about the benefits of therapy?

While some of the characters should have been cut, there were some sections that I think should have been expanded. There is a character named Flame. She is mentioned about 100 times. However, she doesn’t have much of a backstory. In the beginning of the book, we learn how Joe and Yasmin fell in love. It took literally one paragraph! One paragraph! He asked her questions, and they talked.

With one paragraph, I was not invested in the relationship of Joe and Yasmin. Honestly, I was rooting for them to go their separate ways. There is a saying that an author needs to show, not tell. This is a perfect example of telling. The characters need to share with each other their deepest fears and insecurities. They need to weather some storms together. I want to hear some Level 5 communication between them! Where are the sweet nothings?

After reading through this book (and desperately wanting to rewrite it), I finally arrived at the ending. It was weak and forgettable. I think the author wanted to end the book ambiguously, but it just did not work.

Overall, the beginning, middle, and ending need to be rewritten and heavily revised.

*Thank you, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and unbiased opinion.

2024 Reading Schedule
Jan Middlemarch
Feb The Grapes of Wrath
Mar Oliver Twist
Apr Madame Bovary
May A Clockwork Orange
Jun Possession
Jul The Folk of the Faraway Tree Collection
Aug Crime and Punishment
Sep Heart of Darkness
Oct Moby-Dick
Nov Far From the Madding Crowd
Dec A Tale of Two Cities

Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Monica Ali writes of relationships, love and family drama, full of humour and heart, reflecting the complex nature of the modern world. Set in London, 26 year old Yasmin Ghorami lives at home, following in her father's footsteps, a trainee doctor working in the hospital geriatric and dementia wards. She lives at home, just like fellow doctor, Joe Sangster, who she is going to marry, a 'love marriage', just like the one she naively believes her parents, first generation Bengali immigrants done good have. The families are set to meet for a dinner in Primrose Hill at Joe's mother, Harriet's home, an anxiety inducing event for Yasmin, embarrassed by her mother, Anisah, her choice of dress, and the fact that she insists on taking plastic bags full of home made indian dishes to the dinner. Yasmin and Joe's plans for a small, inexpensive wedding are shot to pieces with Harriet manipulating and comandeering the arrangements, making it a more Islamic religious affair.

That evening is to prove to be the trigger for Yasmin to re-evaluate her judgements and assumptions about all those close to her, no one more so than her mother whom Harriet (a well known feminist, writer and activist) connects with and takes to big time. When her family experiences major conflict with regard to her father and his difficult relationship with her unemployed brother, Arif, it results in her mother leaving home and finding sanctuary with a Harriet who welcomes her with open arms into her home. Harriet is instrumental in providing the religiously devout Anisah with the space to seek surprisingly unexpected and unconstrained freedoms that shock Yasmin to her core, particularly the relationship with Flame. Joe seeks therapy for his addiction with Sandor who guides him to face up to and address his relationship his mother. As Yasmin sees the world as she knows it begin to disintegrate when it comes to Joe and her family, she is forced to re-examine her sense of identity, the reality of love marriages, her concerns over her profession, family and work out what it is she really wants.

Ali writes a engaging novel full of warmth, and great characters, it has to be said that Anisah does rather steal the show, although I also had a soft spot for Yasmin's best friend, Rania, a solicitor and ninja. I found myself completely immersed in the story from beginning to end, its focus on 2 generations of an immigrant family, being a parent, whilst providing a social commentary on gender, race, class, religion, culture, and geriatric care in hospitals. This might not be a read for everyone, but I have to say that I loved it. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Middle class British-Indian-Muslim junior-doctor Yasmin Ghorami (with conservative parents and a college drop-out brother) is engaged to doctor Joe Sangster, sole child of an outwardly loving, but intrusive, feminist icon and intellectual 'Harry' Harriet. As the two families get closer together long-held secrets, lies, truths and self realisations come to boil that could change every member of both families for ever. Another wondrous Ali read, one that in which not only the journey is entertaining, emotional, profound and a work of modern art but the sum of the whole is just as worthy of adulation. A book, a read, that will have you laugh-crying throughout.

A deep (as credited in the acknowledgements) research of doctoring in the UK, sees Ali bring to life the trials of a (British Muslim woman) junior-doctor working in a geriatric ward. One of the patients in the ward was probably my favourite supporting character, a 96 year-old five times married Russian Jewish woman :) And this is what I find with the best non-Western descendent writers like Ali, they are often better at not only capturing the nuances of people from multiple Western, Eastern, African, mixed etc. backgrounds, they also manage to artfully overlay their characters with the effects and impact of their experiences and lives; maybe it's just easier to conceptualise 'others', when you yourself grew up as an 'other'.

Two more things I need to share, I like that this is a story with a main cast that inludes five British Muslims but their religion isn't the biggest character in the story (yay!); and most of all, I love what I saw as the core theme of the dangers of deciding people are who we personally see them, as, opposed to whom they actually are. This momentous read is as good as, if not better than Brick Lane; a Four Star, 9 out of 12 read.

2023 read

[Em Lost In Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't let that title trick you into thinking that it is a romance book. Because it is not. It is a family saga with characters struggling with their pasts as present and future are fruits of their pasts. And there's no moving on until you accept things that you want to ignore or denying their existence.

[Marchpane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love Marriage — a London-based culture clash soap — has to be one of the most lacklustre reading experiences I’ve had in a while. It’s about junior doctor Yasmin, daughter of Muslim Indian immigrants, her white fiancé and their respective families. Between Yasmin’s indecision about the wedding, more than one sexual awakening, and some long-buried family secrets, there should be more than enough fodder here for a solid domestic drama, or even (if you want to go a different way) a fizzy chick lit. And yet…

Rania sat at the kitchen table eating a bowl of semai. ‘This is so delicious, Mrs Ghorami, how do you make it?’

‘You have to boil milk for long-long time,’ said Ma. ‘Some people are using condensed milk but then all flavour is gone. You will not taste the ghee or cardamom or even raisins or cashew nuts. I will write this recipe for you.’

All the interesting, flavoursome bits of this novel are smothered by a condensed milk of blandness. The prose is drab, the plotting is flat, and we spend all our time with the dullest characters — whingy Yasmin; insipid fiancé Joe, who can’t even make a sex addiction interesting; his overbearing, self-obsessed mother; even, for some reason, Joe’s therapist who I actually thought was an unfunny parody but, nope! Turns out we’re supposed to take him seriously.

Ali’s prose is workmanlike, but still manages occasional clunkers like this:

Dusk came. Above the steaming rooftops, above the city jotted faintly in mauve the moon hung pale and patient. Soon it would be its turn to shine.

While the writing isn’t at the level required for literary fiction, the story is also not entertaining enough for commercial fiction. It plods. It doesn’t know where to focus. And it leaves several story threads, like Joe’s childhood trauma, and Yasmin’s career woes, hanging in a most infuriating way. A character named Flame just sort of disappears.

There are a few cashews and raisins underneath. Ali manages social commentary on prejudice, faith, authenticity, performative culture and performative wokeness with a deft touch. It’s just a shame this novel doesn’t seem to be playing to her strengths.

We were not a love marriage, this book and I. We stayed together far too long and now — blessedly — it is time to go our separate ways.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monica Ali’s novelistic career of course got off to a spectacular start in 2003 with the Booker shortlisted bestseller “Brick Lane” (where as Bookie’s favourite it was somehow beaten by perhaps the worst Booker winner of all time in “Vernon God Little). And famously she made the influential once-a-decade Granta Best of British Young Novelists list simply on the basis of just the unpublished manuscript of the novel. The book (and the subsequent film) – which is about the arranged marriage of a Bangladeshi woman to a much older man in London - did receive some criticism from some of the Bangladeshi community for elements of its portrayal of them.

Over the next 8 or so years she produced – at regular intervals - three other novels: Alentjo Blue (about a Portugese village community); In the Kitchen (about a Hotel chef); Untold Story (which effectively reimagines the life of Princess Diana after she fakes her death). Interestingly and despite 1000+ ratings each of the books has an average Goodreads rating below 3. And there was a strong sense in many cases that Ali was being implicitly (if not explicitly) criticised for not “sticking to her lane” and writing more tales of Bangladeshi immigrants – something she countered with some aplomb (see the first comment below my review).

Then however her novelistic career hit something of an impasse – something she revealed recently was due to a catastrophic loss of confidence which she broke by moving to writing TV dramas

And this is now her first novel for 10 years – a multicharacter and multicultural tale of London life, featuring at its centre a number of different relationships: in particular one between two Junior doctors (Yasmin – who is working in Geriatrics and Joe – working in Gynae) on the verge of marriage; the other the eponymous relationship of the title between Yasmin’s Indian born parents (her housemaker mother Anisah and her GP Father and family Patriarch Shaokat).

It is a tale though which expands much wider than that group: Yasmin’s brother Arif – whose academic career was tarnished when he was reported to the authorities for what he intended as a research project on Islamic activism; Joe’s mother Harriet - a famous and provocative feminist writer albeit one whose star is staring to fade; two senior Doctors in the Geriatric practice (one white, and his Asian senior focused on winning a major contract); a well-known American psychologist with an expertise in addiction; Yasmin’s lifelong friend – an Employment Rights lawyer and nascent social media Muslim right activist – all of these play a major part with various patients and staff at the hospital in cameo roles.

At its heart are perhaps three themes: relationships, love and marriage – and more specifically sex; intergenerational relationships – pressures and expectations placed on children by their parents and often lazy assumptions made by children about the past lives of their parents; intercultural and race/religious relationships including what is acceptable behaviour in the face of microaggressions or even outright discrimination, as well as whether these even count as racism when compared to religious violence in other societies; class in British society and in particular its intersectionality with race.

And as these play out we find that none of the characters are fully who we, those closest to them and sometimes the characters themselves really think they are.

The novel – with its multi-cast, series of revelations, set piece scenes and character “journeys” openly reads like something of a TV mini series – and is already being adapted as such.

And the largest weakness for me is an Ian McEwan style decision to reproduce the research that has gone into the book – in particular some of the medical conversations and particularly the psychology of addiction.

What I think largely saves it is its double strand of observational satire.

Firstly on society itself – many of the characters are humorous - Harriet and those in her wider household perhaps the most so.

But more impressively on Ali and the world of writing – particularly as she has experienced it. The title itself is ironical – both in the context of the novel (one of the discoveries) but also in its very deliberate nod back to the arranged marriage in her first book and more subtly that underlying he fourth book. If you made a meteoric start to your writing career but with shadows of appropriation – then why note have your main protagonist being encouraged to enter a writing prize when she was at school with a story based on her parents marriage only for her furious father to insist she had no right to claim she could tell their story and that “creative writing is [no] different from lies”. If you were then criticised for not sticking to BAME style stories then have a young black writer criticised for writing an eco-thriller and told to write “another story, something a little closer to home”. And if you choose for your fifth novel to write a on-the-surface relatively conventional novel like this one – then have an arrogant author as a character who claims the novel is dead, that auto-fiction is the only way to go and who decries “women’s fiction” saying “Only the frivolous and the foolish waste their time with synthetic stories – plots, characters, motives, denouements!”

My thanks to Little Brown Book Group UK for an ARC via NetGalley

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars: Kirkus referred to “Love Marriage” as “a comedy of manners of Britain’s urban middle class” which it is and more. Author Monica Ali takes betrothed young doctors from different cultural backgrounds and has fun bringing their families together.

Yasmin Ghorami is a doctor specializing in geriatrics. She comes from a devote Muslim family. Yasmin is a people pleaser and a good girl. In fact, her father chose her occupation for her; she’s never had dreams, only possessed her parent’s dreams for her. Her fiancé is Joe Sangster, a fellow doctor with a feminist mother. Harriet channels an erotic Gloria Steinem in all she does, encouraging polyamorous relationships. Harriet’s latest project is a book of interviews with men about their penises with accompanying photos. Yes, author Ali has some fun with the two families meeting.

Quickly we learn that Joe has a big secret he’s keeping from Yasmin. Yasmin has work issues with a sexist physician who undermines her at every turn. Add to this tension, somehow Yasmin’s devote and sweet mother takes a shine to Harriet! Yasmin’s head is spinning.

There are too many subplots to mention, let’s just say this is like a crazy rendition of “Soap”. Also like the old sitcom “Soap” there are some heavy topics.

I listened to the audio, narrated by Ayesha Dharker. I am sad to write that I am not a fan of Dharker’s voices she used for men. Most sounded smarmy and creepy to the point of distraction. Also, there is so much in this that I wished I would have read it. It’s almost 16 hours in listening length (432 pages), making it chock full of interesting observations. Skip the audio, read this one!

[Alwynne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really struggled with aspects of Monica Ali’s convoluted, contemporary, family drama. The story hinges on the engagement between two doctors, Joe Sangster and Yasmin Ghorami, working in an NHS hospital. Yasmin lives in South London, her first-generation, British-Asian family are a mix of devout and secular Muslims, while Joe lives with his mother Harriet, a famous feminist theorist, in a leafy North London suburb - Harriet seems to be loosely modelled on Germaine Greer both notorious in their youth for their iconoclastic ideas and for posing nude in a magazine. Ali’s plot revolves around binaries, north versus south, literary versus scientific, men versus women, British Asian versus white etc Into the mix are thrown psychiatry and sexual addiction, rape, unexpected pregnancy, a wayward sibling, the issues faced by NHS staff, London’s literati and more. There are some very decent elements, it’s well-researched, and I liked the emphasis on women’s experiences and what feminism is, or might be, for different communities and generations. But I found the characters and scenarios hard to engage with in any sustained way.

Ali’s narrative roams between characters, which is fairly common at the moment in this type of realist relationships novel, her prose is competent enough, but the slow-paced story felt stretched out, often contrived, and the characters tended towards the clichéd. The subject matter was tempting but at times this read like an awkward, slightly stale variation on the kind of culture clash novels that writers like Hanif Kureshi and Jhumpa Lahiri were producing in the 80s, 90s and early noughties. But Kureshi’s The Buddha of Suburbia dealt with its material in a far more entertaining and convincing way, and I found Lahiri a more compelling storyteller. I wasn’t surprised though to find that Love Marriage has already been optioned for the screen, there’s something script-like about the overall style and distanced delivery. However, a number of readers seem to have found this a lot more satisfying, so it clearly suited some tastes more than it did mine.

Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Simon & Schuster for an ARC

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first printing of this book looked like this



but mine is just an ordinary copy, just as well as I might have been otherwise tempted to eat it since it looks delicious like a literary Battenburg cake



But you ought not to judge a book by its sugary outward coating and pleasing bulk. I was a big fan of Brick Lane back in 2003 and I hadn’t run into Monica Ali for years and I thought well, let’s take a stroll round the park and see what she's been up to this last 20 years. Has it been so long?

Sorry to report that this is a pleasant enough novel that reads like it was written with a miniseries in mind, likely for Netflix, that nice outfit who love this kind of warm fuzzy wraparound inclusive liberal tough-life-lessons-learned-by-sympathetic-protagonists smiling through the tears culture-clash insider’s-view sprawling-cast-of-colourful-characters tale of our time. I didn’t not enjoy it but if a novel is 500 pages long I want to suffer more or tingle throughout my extremities or whatnot, because it’s a considerable amount of time for your eyes to be whisking back and forth across so many pages for such modest results.

A lot of the time this was like a few episodes of Doctors



mainly because we are following Yasmin, a 26 year old doctor whose father is a doctor and whose fiancé is a doctor and whose nasty boss is a doctor and whose (spoiler spoiler) is a doctor. Occasionally the story includes non-medical material but it sticks out like a sore thumb, such as when she goes to a swish party thrown by Harriet, her fiance’s overbearing rich feminist mother, and there is an argument between two novelists which ends in fisticuffs. We never meet those two guys again so I guess Monica Ali threw them in for a bit of inside-info literary fun.

Also somewhat irrelevantly, the author informs us

Harriet had met Hillary Clinton at a Democrats Abroad fundraiser decades ago. When she lost to a man who did unspeakable things to women a period of mourning had been declared. Harriet vowed never to utter the name of the man who would next year be sworn in as Moron-in-Chief of the Free World.

I have said some rude things about Trump in my time but I don’t think gratuitously shoehorning them into a novel is the right way to proceed. Harrumph.

A big chunk of the story is about Therapy. There is a wise old bird called Sandor who is Joe the fiance’s therapist. Why does he need a therapist? Because he is a sex addict. Oops! But Joe is in safe hands :

Sandor knew everything there was to know about addiction. He was acknowledged – sometimes acclaimed – as an expert.

Phew! And we get great dollops of Joe’s therapy sessions which we are supposed to take at face value.

Anyway, to cut a 500 page story short, quite a lot of things happen but they seemed to me to be things I had encountered before slightly rearranged. I don't want to put the boot in too much, you know, in spite of how it sounds, because really, I kind of liked this pleasant, well-intentioned novel when I was reading it (for hours). It’s just in retrospect it kind of sags. Sorry, Monica.

2.5 stars rounded up

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

This is a story of a family, a husband and wife, a Bengali couple, who emigrated from Kolkata to live in London, where they raise their son, and daughter, Yasmin.

As this begins, Yasmin is a trainee doctor engaged to Joe, a coworker, and she is getting ready for a dinner with her future in-laws, with her parents accompanying so that the families can meet and discuss the yet-unscheduled-but-upcoming wedding. Joe’s mother relies on caterers, whereas Yasmin’s mother, Anisah, is determined to bring some home cooking to the affair, much to Yasmin’s dismay.

Joe’s parents live in a more exclusive area in a much larger home than Yasmin’s family, and Joe’s mother, Harriet, is...more progressive. A former model who achieved some notoriety for posing nude back in the 70’s, Harriet is an academic who considers herself a liberal, loves to entertain the educated, more ‘cultured’ and well-read set.

A story that covers a lot of territory, perhaps too much, which left me wondering what other readers would make of it. It flits here and there, a man who seems unable to be faithful to one woman, who seems to prefer finding and trying out women the way one might check out different restaurants. Not necessarily looking for a better meal, per se, just a different one. A young woman who struggles with the career she’s worked so hard for, but is no longer sure what - or who - she wants. A father whose life seems to have fallen apart, a son who is taking a path that feels too impulsive, ridiculous and dangerous to his parents. A wife that has decided that enough is enough. A friendship that forms between the future two mother-in-laws that adds fuel to the fire. Oh, yes, and sex.

There’s a lot going on in this story, varying points of view, which added to the larger, sometimes trying, sometimes fascinating, picture in progress. Fortunately, although it covers multiple storylines, it is at heart Yasmin’s story. How her view of the trajectory her life is taking makes her realize what she truly wants may not be what she thought, especially after secrets are exposed, and lies withheld force her to examine what she really wants.

’Life is not simple.’ A phrase emphasizing a simple truth is often repeated. Life takes twists and turns, and our lives are often upended.

A story of the complex nature of relationships, sex, faith, family, and - perhaps especially - of love - in all its many forms.


Published: 03 May 2022

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Scribner

[Sarah]

DNF at 20%

Yawn. I found every character’s personality to be lacking in nuance, the pace to be glacial and the plot to be contrived. Not for me!

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful audio. This novel came highly recommended and lived up to the accolades. It is the story of an Indian family living in current day London, the immigrant parents and British born children negotiating present day challenges.
I'm not inclined to give long summaries and this book covers a lot of present day topics, way too many to outline here.

The story begins with the Indian parents accompanying their daughter Yasmin to meet the parent of her fiance, Joe. Yasmin has followed in her father's footsteps and is a physician working for the British Health Service. Her fiance also a NHS physician is upper class British whose mother, Harriet, is an outspoken feminist with several published books. Yasmin is anxious about how her conservative parents will accept or judge Harriet and what Harriet will think of them. Harriet, a strong willed, long single parent wants a hand in planning the wedding and steam rolls her way into not only the wedding plans but also a family riff that develops.

I won't get into a lot of spoilers here. Enough to say it is a well told almost soap opera of a story, with looks at the complications when cultures meet, immigration, Muslim women, The NHS, sexual addiction, pregnancy, current feminism, the social media, geriatric care--to name a few.

In short there is never a dull moment. The audio is extremely well done with primary narration by Ayesha Dharker and the addition of her voice really brought the story alive. It reminded me some of Franzen's latest The Crossroads as it is similar in looking at family dynamics and the hidden secrets that influence the misconceptions and misunderstandings of family members.

It is a little long at 16 hours on audio but after a slow start I found it totally engaging with realistic situations and characters. 4.5 stars rounded up. Really worth the time with much to contemplate. Highly recommend

P.S since writing this review I read the story a 2nd time with a bookgroup. Just as good and there was much I missed or had forgotten in a less than a year. Great discussion book

[Emma.catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars ⭐️

I finished this book early this morning but it has taken me all day to fully process and conclude my thoughts. This book contains SO much. I could easily write an essay but I will try to restrain myself.

Firstly….

WHY have I put off reading this for so long???!!!

I had heard about this story and really wasn’t sure this book was for me but after the first (short) chapter I was in love. I don’t know if it was Monica’s writing style or the transportation into their Indian culture but I just knew this was going to be a great read. However, what I didn’t predict was the enormous emotional impact this book would have on me.

Monica has a very clever way of writing about important and challenging topics in a lighthearted manner. She doesn’t make you work for it, she causally dishes it out in a way that is relatable and easy to take in, despite the enormity of the topics she touches on. Indian culture, feminism, family bonds, sexuality and abuse all come in to play throughout this novel.

This is a VERY special book imo. I will remember and cherish this story for a long time and I am so happy to say it vastly exceeded my expectations.

The only reason for it not being a 5 star read was purely the length of it; I felt it was about 50-100 pages too long and drawn out and there were definitely a few chapters that could have been eliminated. However, it did not massively affect my overall enjoyment and interest in the book.

I will leave you with an important message…

Life is not always simple…Love is not simple…but a love marriage is essential to a happy, long-lasting relationship

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a couple decide to get married it's a nerve-wracking experience arranging for the parents to meet for the first time. Monica Ali's “Love Marriage” opens with Yasmin travelling with her parents to the home of her fiancé Joe and his mother. Though Joe's mother Harriet is a feminist and scholar who has published a progressive sexually-explicit book, Yasmin is too nervous to even mention sex in her household because of her parents' traditional values. So she has even more cause to worry about how their very different families will get on. The story describes how these individuals become heavily entangled in each other's lives amidst planning for Yasmin and Joe's marriage. Certain aspects of all their identities have remained hidden, but as they come closer to making a commitment the truth about the past and these characters' desires comes out into the open. There's a wonderfully engaging quality to Ali's style of writing which makes so many of these characters feel instantly familiar. I greatly enjoyed reading this romantic drama which involves the complexities of modern relationships, misunderstandings between generations, cross-cultural tensions and issues in the medical profession.

Read my full review of Love Marriage by Monica Ali at LonesomeReader

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Scribner and Goodreads for providing me with an early finished copy of this book in exchange for a review.

All words are entirely my own and may not be used in any other work besides this, may not be republished, reproduced, quoted, or used in any matter without direct permission.

You are now able to purchase this on Amazon, Book Depository, BooksAMillion, Barnes & Noble, or any other local bookstore. Go support independent bookstores!

Well, this book was long. And quite long. My edition from Scribner specifically was 417 however I know the Virago edition in the UK (which is the one I am using to put this review on) has around 532. I'm not one who is necessarily scared of big books, but don't like it when it's mostly just filler.

I haven't read any of Ali's previous work, I know that her most famous work Brick Lane was shortlisted for the Booker but that's really all I know about her. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if this book was nominated.

The first fifteen or so pages were just the Ghorami family heading out to someone's house. And, it didn't quite feel necessary. I might say that for much of the details were, unnecessary. Ali kind of dragged on a lot of it to increase the page count.

However, as with most notable literary fiction books, the character development was amazing. The family dynamics and topics surrounding that felt very realistic and understandable. I could relate to a lot of the conversations that Yasmin was having with her family and the different connections around her.

The first half was literally just exposition. And Ali is very good at that, however I don't know many people who read books for the exposition. That's quite a common complaint I've heard about this book, and I agree with it completely. Although I felt it necessary for the book to include different conversations with characters, a lot of it could have been omitted.

I will say though that the dialogue was realistic, and some passages were just written exquisitely. Descriptions of the setting and some people were really amazing and some discussions were very philosophical. It's not something we haven't already heard but told in a different way that makes you slightly think about it in another way.

I also like the discussions of racism in this book. This book covered a lot about Islamophobia, which is not my place to talk about, although similar discussions of racism in the world I was deeply able to resonate with. How there is not this one big sign that is considered racism, however over time something minor and minor builds up to become one major thing.

This book had two very distinct sections, one where it was just exposition and development, and one where it was different discussions on much heavier topics. And I would say that I liked the second half much better.

I would recommend this especially if you like slow burns, but also if you're just an avid literary fiction reader.

all in all: good but not too special

[Fanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love holds half the weight of the term ‘love marriage’ but is love truly enough to balance the other half of a locution that has been ingrained in South Asian mindsets as an utterance either meant to be annihilated or desperately aspired. The Ghoramis, a British-Indian family, have already met the highest level of ‘modernity’ that a desi immigrant in a suburban London home inevitably hopes to chase—Yasmin’s father, an anglicised and proud doctor, and mother, a kind-hearted home-maker, had bravely left the expected arranged marriage route in their time to unite through a love marriage. Understandably, they’re legends to their second generation children.

➵ consider reading this review over on my blog!

Yasmin is a trained doctor spending most of her time in the geriatric wards of a hospital. She is engaged to a fellow doctor, Joe, who is simply perfect: intelligent, kind, charming—the son of a rich feminist author and activist, Harriet Sangster, who is best known for posing nude in the 70s. Clearly, the two families are different. The Ghoramis are poised with Shaokat, the demanding father, being proud of his emergence from poverty and for integrating so well into a new culture, and Anisah, being the quiet Muslim woman and an excellent cook who holds her beliefs close. The Sangsters are delicately clinging on to the newfangled habits they’ve long kept, whether it’s Joe’s mother wandering into his bathroom while he’s showering or Harriet herself being an outlandish comic figure too flamboyant for even her own son.

But why should the families represent the two love birds who are finding themselves again as the self-images they adorned are slowly unravelling? This fifth novel by the author of the bestselling debut, Brick Lane , shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize, makes you wonder if the decision to marry can simply be sealed by a meet-the-parents event drenched in hilarity—especially when the laughs come at the expense of an immigrant mother’s wonky grammar—where a subtly domineering mother of Joe corners his fiance into planning a Muslim wedding against the bride’s own will to simply climb a ladder of western liberalism.

So it is a love marriage.

Yasmin and Joe’s relationship doesn’t depend on their families or their clashing cultures. But the growing weight of secrets and a haunted past in the Ghorami family, and the straining unnaturality of the mother-son duo in the Sangster family will upset the essence of the two ‘lovers’. As Yasmin finds herself lost in a chaotic dementia ward and navigates misleading legacies in a home occupied by her increasingly hard-drinking father and a discontented, uncertain brother attempting to define his faith; and as Joe finds himself sitting across a psychiatrist recounting the dysfunctional relationship he shares with his mother and infidelity, it’s impossible to not worry: would this really be a love marriage?

With a storytelling that details the ordinary lives of decent people and a prose that exposes the dark difficulties faced by these ordinary people trying to live decently, Love Marriage doesn’t flaunt the extravagance it holds as an engaging fiction and instead rightfully lets it simply be—for you to mark it with everything it really is, from the stacks of Tupperware to the metropolitan liberal shenanigans. Whether it’s Joe fighting his addiction, Yasmin resenting the intergenerational pain that inevitably gets passed down, Anisah letting her friendship with Harriet blossom, or a patient that asks for a British doctor when attended by Yasmin, everything will comment on gender, race, class, and religion through explorations of passion, family, morality, and heart.

Ordinary yet extravagant; definitely dramatic.

Overall, Love Marriage impresses with how remarkably it sets up a perfect backdrop of the everyday—true to the diaspora— for powerful, ordinary questions around societal expectations, self-discovery, interracial relationships, multiculturalism, and the push and pull between religious and rebellious identities; ultimately lacing this multifaceted tale with humour, sympathy, and plain understanding.

↳ if you wish to support: blog | ko-fi | twitter

[Holly R W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is the Goodreads blurb describing "Love Marriage".

Yasmin Ghorami is twenty-six, in training to be a doctor (like her Indian-born father), and engaged to the charismatic, upper-class Joe Sangster, whose formidable mother, Harriet, is a famous feminist. The gulf between families is vast. So, too, is the gulf in sexual experience between Yasmin and Joe.

As the wedding day draws near, misunderstandings, infidelities, and long-held secrets upend both Yasmin’s relationship and that of her parents, a “love marriage,” according to the family lore that Yasmin has believed all her life.

A gloriously acute observer of class, sexual mores, and the mysteries of the human heart, Monica Ali has written a captivating social comedy and a profoundly moving, revelatory story of two cultures, two families, and two people trying to understand one another.
***********************************************

I enjoyed Ali's writing. Her characters were quite interesting and the story line kept me guessing. This was a hard book to put down, although I wish it was shorter. The novel's humor made it fun to read.

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I finished Love Marriage I had to check that the author was indeed Monica Ali, the same writer whose debut novel, Brick Lane was Booker Prize listed and whose subject matter was serious, relevant, and which spoke for a community sometimes looked at askance by a wider Britain. Love Marriage, published twenty years later is not a sequel as such, but it does shine a light once more on a family whose Bengali origins are set off against the difficulties and challenges of integrating into twenty first century Britain.
For the most part Love Marriage is silly froth. Had I finished the book and then seen Sally Rooney had been contracted as editorial and content manager I would have figured.
That said its quite enjoyable froth, and the story of boy meets girl, with various attendant doubts, difficulties, and deceits, is always relatable. In this case the two protagonists are Yasmin and Joe. Are their anxieties and hopes plausible and interesting? In the case of Yasmin Ghorami I thought she was a good central figure and held the book together. At work, as a doctor at St Barnabas, her compassion for patients and her struggles with management and with the pressures of working within the NHS was always convincing. No wonder the current poster boy for insight into working conditions in the NHS, Adam Kay, endorses the book with the blurb “the most human portrayal of doctors I’ve ever read”.
Yasmin befriends an elderly lady, Zlata Antonova, and a sub plotline involves a wheelchair and ‘escape’, but this bit of the story was a bit too much One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest for my liking.
Yasmin also has a “best” friend and the value of this is demonstrated throughout the book. Rania, an immigration lawyer, is an attractive personality and I did laugh at her observations about the minefield of on-line dating. Her chosen Muslim dating website includes the tick box entitled “piety level” !!

Characters drive this book and I found that my response to the portrayals of the older generation was mixed. Yasmin’s father, Shaokat, was miserable throughout the book, and marginally resentful, and unsettled, and awkward. His was a life unfulfilled, despite significant medical skills and palpable success in helping the needy. A believable personality and a good, though distant, father at times.
The rest of the key adults were, I found, parodies of recognisable character types. Did I buy into the “new”, liberated, Anisa Ghorami, Yasmin’s mother? No I did not. Her late life embracing of new friends and interests didn’t wash with me at all. Anisa’s friendship with Flame, and with Harriet Sangster were remarked upon by her family. What unlikely, extraordinary, bonding revolved around Anisa they all observed. I also thought they were extraordinary, but I just didn’t believe in the plausibility of the adult female friendships at all.
Harriet Sangster, Joe’s mother conflicted me. The oedipal mother/son relationship between her and her son, Joe, was an interesting one. It was one which makes an interesting comparison with Shaokat and his son, Arif. Its strange and fascinating through a backward lens to see how the influence of parents manifest on the offspring in later life.

I had the chance to see Monica Ali in conversation with Neel Mukherjee on February 2,2022, the date of the book launch at Waterstones Piccadilly.
The main insights I gathered from the conversation included:
• Sex drives the story. The major turning points revolve around sexual encounters including infidelity and revenge sex. Monica Ali dreaded writing these scenes, having not done so before, and also in the knowledge that her daughter would be horrified!
• Title of the book. It’s a good perspective to look at the responses of people and communities when arrangements for a marriage are being made. Does love have to come before a marriage? The contrast implied in the title compared to arranged marriage is deliberate.
• “Clash of Cultures”. Monica Ali has seen reviews that imply a clash. That is not what concerns the book at all. The meeting of couples , and parents, is inherently comic.
• Character is everything, and Monica Ali has to be able to hear her characters. There is no ‘deus ex machina’ in her story.
• Medical profession. Doctors are relatively little written about. For her research (which Monica Ali enjoys) she subscribed to the New England Journal. This book was started in 2016 prior to the heightened awareness due to Covid 19.
• Yasmin is the very opposite of the current vogue (seen by Monica Ali) of the “failure to launch”

Overall this was a not unpleasant reading experience but probably not one that will live long in the memory.

[Girish · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Calling someone racist is worse than being racist?"
"I'll put it like this: one is easier to get away with than the other."

Monica Ali's innocuously titled book with a first chapter of meeting of the parents explodes into a complex, raw novel about dysfunctional families, identity, love, fidelity and the role of Parents.

The Ghoramis are settlers in England from Calcutta and their daughter Yasmin, a geriatric trainee doctor, is all set for her love marriage to Joe, a gynecologist. Harriet, the groom's mom is a reformist and feminist and she welcomes the Ghoramis into her household - especially her mother Anisah. The setting is the plot of most NRI marriage stories inspired by Mira Nair, but then that is when Ms.Ali decides she has a lot to cover.

At the core of the story is what Yasmin and Joe are each going through. From minor frustrations to infidelity to guilt - both characters are blown apart. Joe's therapy sessions seem like needless pricking of scabs and soon you start wondering where this is headed. Yasmin is going through her own trials of workplace politics and an impulsive recklessness.

The focus shifts onto all the characters so that everyone is taken along their respective arcs. Her brother jobless brother Arif whose experience makes him want to do a documentary on Islamophobia. There is a long passage on Microaggression which is very apt and applies for very many of today's '-isms' which we consciously or subconsciously do. There is her friend Rania, his therapist Sandor, the strict father, her mother's friend Flame and even patients and doctors.

The book will surprise you, if not shock you. An unexpected ride.

Note: I would like to thank Little Brown Books and Netgalley for the ARC of the book for honest review. The book is releasing in Feb 3rd 2022.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for a reading group. We have not yet met because one member has been busy fighting the healthcare/insurance bureaucracy for proper care of her dangerously ill husband. But meet we will in December.

Monica Ali is an incredibly talented author (Brick Lane, In the Kitchen), a British writer of Bangladeshi and English heritage, who never fails to ignore the many tensions between the Brits and the leftovers from the British Empire.

In Love Marriage, she takes on a married couple, Indian born immigrants to London, and their secrets, which infect the lives of their two children in the 21st century. Their daughter Yasmin, the "good" child, is training to be a doctor and about to be married to a privileged white man. Her brother, Arif, the "bad" child, has no job but his white lower middle class girlfriend is pregnant.

On one level this story is about sex: sexual knowledge, experience, openness and even addiction. On another level it is about class distinctions. On its deepest level it is about mothers in all their wondrous and weird permutations.

I found it a brilliant mix of topics written so well that I was desperately involved with every character. Though Yasmin made me crazy, the mothers made me laugh and cry. The men? Well, you know, they are men with all their unconscious weaknesses.

A great read!

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This one was really great. The place the novel stands out is in how varied, complex, flawed, and real the relationships are among and between two families, one Indian Muslim and the other rather WASPY. Yasmin, 26, feels she knows all about sex after sleeping with three men, and is engaged to be married to Joe, a fellow doctor who has had voluminous sexual relationships. The couple wants a sweet and simple marriage at the registry office, but both Yasmin and Joe's mothers have different ideas. Harriet, Joe's mother is a vocal feminist activist with no hang ups about sex. Yasmin's parents on the other hand are devout Muslims where sex is rarely mentioned. Yasmin is sure there will be a culture clash the first time her physician father and mother meet Harriet, Joe's mother. There is a clash but it's not at all what's expected. Harriet's feminism unlocks some need for freedom in Yasmin's mother and their respective families are transformed.

The book tackles many themes including same sex love, polyamory, immigrant parents pressures on their children to be lawyers or doctors, infidelity, addiction, racial discrimination, rape, and the plight of the elderly left in hospitals.

It's hard to describe the book without spoilers, but let's just say every other page held a new relationship drama. The characters were very real, very alive, and dealing with universal problems in unconventional ways, in part because of the cultural differences, but also due to Harriet's overbearing, all consuming relationship with Joe.

Joe and Yasmin work hard on their individual issues, including Joe attending numerous therapy sessions. It's very unclear whether they'll be able to stay together in light of all the obstacles in their way. You just have to read it to know.

It was very well written. I'd call it high brow women's fiction. Very worth the read.

[Aoife Cassidy McM · Rating 4 out of 5]

The forthcoming novel from the Booker shortlisted author of Brick Lane, Love Marriage is a gorgeous, layered and immersive tale of a Bengali Muslim family living in London.

Yasmin Ghorami is a junior doctor, engaged to upper middle class doctor Joe Sangster. As the wedding approaches and Yasmin’s parents (Ma and Baba as she calls them) are set to meet Joe’s mum, outspoken feminist writer Harriet, Yasmin finds herself examining what she wants from life and her relationship with Joe, and what a “love marriage” actually is (as opposed to an arranged one). Joe meanwhile is having his own personal crisis and is going through therapy, the ramifications of which begin to spill over into their lives.

I loved how the story unfolded. We get to know all of the characters, some in more detail than others, and Yasmin goes on a voyage of self-discovery that I found relatable and moving. I’m not sure how I felt about the ending (too neat perhaps?), but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book.

There’s an examination of race, class and identity in British society woven into the story very neatly and cleverly so that it never feels forced. Islamophobia, Brexit and racism are explored if not exactly superficially, then sufficiently to leave you pondering after you’ve finished reading.

Mostly though, it’s a warm-hearted look at how we live, love and connect with each other. I found myself lost in the pages. Recommended. 4/5 ⭐️

*Love Marriage by Monica Ali will be published on 3 February 2022 and it’s one to watch out for. Many thanks to the publishers @littlebrownbooks and @netgalley for the ARC. As always, this is an honest review.*

[Chris]

DNF at 37%
I was really looking forward to reading this as I had really enjoyed 'Brick Lane,' but I'm afraid 'Love Marriage' wasn't a match. To me the characters were caricatures and predictable and the story line didn't interest me enough to continue. Sad to have to come to this conclusion.
Thank you Little Brown Netgalley UK for the ARC.

[Sarah Bari · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is this really written by Monica Ali? The brilliant Monica Ali who wrote the nuanced, sensitive and epically bold Brick Lane that knocked the socks of a whole community of migrant Bengalis? One of my favourites of all time.. she wrote this?! Apparently she did. I do not know how this got past her editor.. but here we are.

Speaking of editors.. this book needed one.. or several.. to show Ali some tough love. What even is this book about? Why is this 500 pages? This is at best a rom-com posing to be a clever commentary on dysfunctional migrant families, screwed up parenting, race, class, segregation, abuse all tied with a lingering intercultural “love marriage” waiting to happen. But I still can’t figure out what the point of the 500 page narrative was.

The first 230+ pages of Ali’s book - literally NOTHING HAPPENS. I actually mean it.. nothing happens. There is a 15 page long scene at the very beginning of the book where the Bengali family is trying to gather themselves to go and meet the parent of the groom who is obviously white and posh. 15 freakin pages! The cringe mention of the Tupperware and the overindulgent food.. I had to skip a few paragraphs because I couldn’t take the juvenile digs.

The second half of the book (around page 240-ish) the novel suddenly seems to redeem itself and I was like yesss.. its happening.. something is happening. Well yeah.. a lot happens. So much happens. Too much happens. Oh to the em gee.. the amount of tangent Ali throws at you.. the sheer amount of plot twists, I didn’t even know which one to care about. The most disappointing one of all was the massive reveal at the end- I mean I cannot believe that the issue of abuse was used so callously to add to the shock factor. That too by a woman author. This was such a sellout, my heart sank.

Ali’s characters (there are far far far too many of them.. I mean who the ef cares about the therapist’s wife and the infinite patients in the comical geriatric ward) are so silly and caricature-ish that its hard to fathom this is the same authored who penned the magnificently complex character of Nazneen in Brick Lane.

I am sorry.. this book just aint it! Generous 2 stars from me. I need a cracker of a read to get rid of the bad taste this one left. i

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. My previous experience with Monica Ali’s writing was somewhat inconsistent. loved her first book, the “Brick Lane” and not so much “In the kitchen” that felt as if it was looking for its purpose throughout and failed to find it anyway …. But this one, that I was attracted to for some reason before I even looked inside, was simply magnificent.
The protagonist is a daughter to Bengali parents who immigrated to Great Britain before their children Yasmin and Arif were born. The father is a proud and very proper GP and mother is a housewife. Arif finds it difficult to find a suitable career path, but to the fathers deepest joy and satisfaction Yasmin follows in his footsteps, into the medical profession. She is a trainee doctor and engaged to be married to Joe, also a doctor, and the nicest, kindest and the most considerate guy that one could imagine. Joes mother however, is an outspoken feminist and that, considering the traditional Benghali family might mean trouble.
The book starts when the two families are about to meet for the first time and I can tell you without giving out all too much of the plot, that the occasion is a moderate success and that everyone is on their best behavior… But after that, whatever I thought might happen later on within the 500 pages of this book, just didn’t. The characters went quickly off the script that I have devised for them in my head, and the rest is a journey of self discovery, and reevaluation of wishes, duties, assumptions and expectations that were contained in the cards that they all have been dealt in life.
It was unexpected, brilliant and for me anyway, engaging from the first page to the last.

[Jin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein interessantes und auch unterhaltsames Buch über Yasmin, die zwischen ihren indischen Wurzeln und ihren Gefühlen zu Joe, ihrem englischen Freund, hadert, den sie heiraten will. Oder heiraten sollte. Und eigentlich liebt. Oder etwa nicht?
Es geht um mehr als eine Hochzeit zwischen Yasmin und Joe, sondern auch um die kulturellen Unterschiede, das Bild der Frau in verschiedenen Gesellschaften und auch die Beziehungen zwischen Familienmitgliedern. Das Buch las sich sehr schnell und es war auch gut geschrieben. Ich hätte allerdings weniger Themen, dafür mehr Tiefe bevorzugt. Vor allem fand ich die Geschichte von Joe nicht wirklich passend und zu oberflächlich behandelt. Auch wenn die Länge des Buches ok war, finde ich, dass das Buch davon profitiert hätte, wenn man Joes Familiengeschichte rausgelassen hätte.

** Dieses Buch wurde mir über NetGalley als E-Book zur Verfügung gestellt **

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book has so many hopes for but feel it start to lose itself mid way through though

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I needed a good engrossing read like this one, to get me out of a reading slump!
Really enjoyed! 👍

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

4-4.5

Not sure yet where I fall. This won’t be a book for everyone, and I feel it needs some more editing, but overall, I thought this was very good. There is a LOT to unpack in it. So many different issues discussed. Definitely worth a read for literary fiction/family saga fans.

Full rtc

Thanks to Scribner Books for the gifted copy.

Review Date: 04/11/2022
Publication Date: 05/03/2022

[Sonal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate putting a book on the "DNF" list but I've realized life is too short and my "to be read" list too long to waste time on books I don't enjoy.
I knew as soon as I started reading that this would be one of those books with long drawn out writing, using big words, but not really helping the story. Still, I pushed myself to give it a chance. The more I read, the more it proved me right. I felt like nothing was really happening, the characters were bland, and I ended up skimming the rest of the book. I found that everything is pretty much summed up in the last few chapters and the rest of the book just dragged itself there. That said, I think the revelations that are made towards the end are probably some of the best parts of the book and I wish the first 3/4's of the book had been as interesting to read.
Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner Publicity for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.