Tag: marriage

Review: His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie

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Anna: Thank you to Algonquin Books for sending me a copy of this lovely book! His Only Wife is a smart simply written and beautiful story about a modern woman finding her voice under complicated circumstances.

When Afi’s family arranges a marriage for her with one of the richest and sought after men in Ghana, she is excited and nervous. She finds it a bit strange that her new husband, Eli, doesn’t come to the wedding, but she’s told not to worry about it. From there, Afi moves from her small village, where she shared a tiny room with her mother, into a fancy apartment in the city. Weeks pass, and she’s yet to meet her husband. Slowly, Afi learns more about her husband and the other woman he is hiding. As she becomes accustomed to her new luxurious life, she also becomes obsessed with securing her position as Eli’s only wife.

 I loved the simple and straightforward way this is written. There are complicated relationships between the characters, made even more dynamic by cultural expectations and traditions. When she first marries Eil, Afi is completely subservient to society’s expectations and worries about her cooking, cleaning, and pleasing her husband. But as the story goes on, she starts to question everything she knows about being a woman.

Spoiler: The only complaint I have is that everything regarding Afi’s career as a seamstress comes very easy for her, almost too easy for here. There are no obstacles in the plot in regards to her career, and by the end of the novel she has become a renowned designer in a matter of months. Unrealistic? I think so.

Otherwise, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book set in Ghana, and I enjoyed the rich descriptions of the customs, culture, and the food. I look forward to reading more by Peace Adzo Medie in the future! 

VERDICT: 4/5 books!

Review: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

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Alexis:

Hi, everyone! I know Anna and I have been MIA for a while, but with me being in grad school and Anna freshly married, we’ve been a little busy! Thankfully, it’s my Thanksgiving Break (no pun intended) so I actually have some fun reading time. Now, to jump into the review…

I had the opportunity to go to a reading by Jaswal, and I’m so glad I did! I got to hear her read from this book, and it really helped bring the characters to life.

Nikki is a British woman, the daughter of Indian immigrants. When she drops out of law school and then her father dies, she starts working as a creative writing teacher. However, she quickly realizes that most of the Punjabi widows who signed up for the class can barely read English.

By the book’s title, you can probably tell where this is going. I love Nikki’s character, and I respect her trying to straddle her traditional Indian community with her modern British community. Her sister, Mindi, is a good foil to Nikki, as she searches for an arranged marriage throughout the book.

Overall, there is a lot of humor in the book, and I enjoyed the characters and the widows’ stories, as well as the glimpses we get of their inner lives. This book isn’t fast paced, and because of that, we really get to know Nikki as a character. By the halfway point, more community tensions start appearing that add another layer to the book.

I really liked the first ¾ of the novel, but the last quarter was a little too melodramatic. A lot of the events that happen feel very soap opera to me. And since the rest of the book rings very true, this threw me off a bit. And because of that, I knocked this review down to 4 stars.

VERDICT: 4 stars

 

 

 

SPOILER below:

I also found Nikki’s reaction to the gossip about Jason too overblown. She knew that the gossip the widows spread isn’t always 100% reliable, and yet she takes their gossip and just assumes the worst of Jason. I like the Pride & Prejudice style letter that he writes to her, however!

Review: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

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Alexis:

I was a little hesitant to read The Star-Touched Queen. I had high hopes for Roshani Chokshi’s newest book, The Gilded Wolves, which came out earlier this year. And unfortunately, that book fell short for me.

The Star-Touched Queen takes place in two fantasy kingdoms called Bharata and Akaran. When main character Maya turns seventeen, her father, the Raja of Bharata, seeks to marry her off in her order to bring peace to his kingdom. The land of Bharata believes in horoscopes, and Maya’s horoscope speaks of death and a doomed marriage. When Maya is forced to choose a husband, she chooses a cloaked king named Amar who takes her to his strange and empty kingdom of Akaran.

The story that follows is a blend of Hades and Persephone and Beauty and the Beast.

This book claims to be YA fantasy, and despite the almost-insta-love, I found it to be so much more than that. Chokshi’s writing borders on magical realism. She blends reality with mythology in a way that might annoy or confuse some readers. But it is Neil Gaiman-esque in a way that I love. Chokshi’s writing shines in her worldbuilding, magical descriptions, and in her dialogue. Her writing is otherworldly and atmospheric.

This book is full of Indian mythology and folklore, including strange creatures and reincarnation. Chokshi weaves kingdoms together and writes dark, death-like imagery, with large sprinklings of magic throughout.

I want to give this book 5 stars, but it’s not quite there. While I was completely absorbed by the story and the world, Maya and Amar’s characters are lacking. Maya’s main characteristic is that she no longers wants to be shunned, and she wants freedom. While I like this about her, I never felt like I had a full grasp of her personality, not to mention what she wants or doesn’t want in life. While Amar is an interesting character, again, I feel like Chokshi never gives him enough of a personality.

However, this is the first book in a series, so I hope later books give Maya and Amar a chance to build into rounder characters. However, I noticed that the next books in the series don’t even focus on Maya and Amar.

I loved this book, I just wish Chokshi’s character development was better!

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VERDICT: 4 stars

Review: The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

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Alexis:

The Blood of Flowers focuses on an unnamed fifteen-year-old girl in 17th century Persia, which is now modern day Iran. Her passion is making carpets, and after her father dies, she and her mother are taken in by her carpet-maker uncle. But then she is forced into a sigheh, a three month contract of marriage, with an older man, in order to have money for her and her mother to survive.

I loved the descriptions of the fabled city of Isfahan. The author spends a lot of time describing the marketplaces and the people that the main character runs into. She writes beautiful descriptions of the food, drink, and clothing of the characters. My favorite part of this book was the carpet making. It was such an interesting process to learn about, and the author did a great job describing the carpets, which were such an important way of life in 17th century Persia.

That being said, this novel is very slow-paced. It took a couple of chapters for me to get into it, and even then, I never felt particularly connected to the main character, despite the book being in first person. The plot is very simple: girl’s father dies, girl and mother must find a way to live, girl accepts a short marriage contract for money.

Unfortunately, way too much of this book focuses on the sigheh. Every chapter focused on the main character trying to sexually please her husband. The first couple of times were necessary, in order to show how the main character has no say in society, her life, or her marriage. She only exists to please a man. And while this is important to focus on, as a historical fiction novel, the author spends an increasingly amount of time on their sex scenes.

The novel also has many tales intersected throughout. While I liked these at first, there were too many of them and they drew me out of the story.

Eventually, the novel pulls away from this and focuses on the carpet making once again. But when the novel ends, I felt like I only got a glimpse of the main character’s life after her sigheh. The novel drags on and on, and then all of a sudden the girl is nineteen, in a better place, and the book just ends.

Overall, I can see the main point the author was trying to make. Life was terrible for women in 17th century Persia. Carpet making was not for women. Girls were supposed to be forced into child marriages by the age of fifteen. The author tried to show that the main character was different: she had a voice, she got out of a marriage, and she had a talent in a man-dominated field. But she and the other characters often felt flat.

The book had a great premise, and I loved the author’s worldbuilding. But I struggled to connect with the characters and the story.

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VERDICT: 2 ½ stars

Review: The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

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Anna:

I’m here again to gush about this great book. It took me a month to read–partly because it’s dense and partly because I wanted to savor it. I loved My Brilliant Friend, but it took me a year to get to book two. I’m going to make it a priority to finish the series in 2019!

VERDICT: 5 Stars

This is the second book in the Neopolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein. I’m not going to get into much of the plot, because I don’t want to spoil anything. While My Brilliant Friend told of Elena and Lila’s childhood together growing up in a poor working-class village in Naples, My Brilliant Friend follows them as Elena goes to university, and Lila navigates her new marriage. This book deals with the the effects of education, wealth, and marriage on people and their relationships. What I love about these books is that above all they’re about the complicated but unbreakable bonds of female friendship, and two friends who won’t let sexism and poverty dictate their lives.