Love Marriage: The Sunday Times bestseller and 'unputdownable exploration of modern love' (Stylist)

by Monica Ali (Autor)

Hardcover, 2022

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Genres

Collection

Fiction

Publication

Virago (2022), 432 pages

Description

"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 domineering mother, Helen, is a famous feminist. Though both Yasmin's parents and Joe's mother approve of the marriage, the cultural gulf between them is vast as, it turns out, is the gulf in sexual experience between Yasmin and Joe. The novel opens as Yasmin, her parents and her brother pile into their car, packed with Indian food prepared by Yasmin's mother, to go to dinner to meet Joe's mother in her elegant townhouse in one of London's poshest neighborhoods. Contrary to all of Yasmin's fears, her unsophisticated and somewhat flamboyant mother is embraced and celebrated by Helen and her friends. Many complications ensue when Yasmin discovers that Joe has had an affair with a co-worker, and Yasmin's ne'er do well brother is banished from the house by her father, and Yasmin's mother moves to Helen's house in protest. Love Marriage is a story of emotionally fraught self-discovery and how the secrets people keep hidden affect their most intimate relationships. Joe hides the exact nature of his promiscuous past; Yasmin's brother and mother keep a monumental secret from their father; Yasmin has a wildly erotic affair of her own; and the story of her parents' love marriage proves to be a cover-up for a dark, tragic history. In the wake of extreme upheaval, Yasmin finds herself, and her life, transformed"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Cariola

Yasmin Ghorami, a resident physician, is planning to marry Joe, a fellow resident. Her parents are Muslim immigrants from India, and Yasmin has always been enthralled with their "love marriage" story: how her upper class mother met and fell in love with her lower class, orphaned father, a man who

made his own way in the world, eventually becoming a doctor. But family life in their home isn't perfect. Yasmin's brother, Arif, is considered by their father to be a wastrel with no ambition and faces constant criticism. Things only gets worse when his girlfriend becomes pregnant. Yasmin is the golden child, the one who follows her father's dreams.

Joe seems to have the perfect relationship with his mother, Harriet, a feminist, activist, and writer; his father abandoned them when Joe was just a few months old. When Yasmin's parents come to their home for dinner, Harriet is captivated Anisah, her mother--and vice versa. And Anisah seems to be even more captivated by Flame, Harriet's performance artist friend. A few days after the dinner, Anisah moves into Harriet's house, throwing the Ghorami family into chaos.

The unravelling of two families is told from several points of view: Yasmin's, Joe's, and Sandor's (he is Joe's therapist). Lots of secrets are uncovered, and some of the characters have a more difficult time dealing with the truth than others. Yasmin, in particular, has to face some uncomfortable truths about herself, her family, and her relationships.

There's a lot more going on here than I want to give away. I found this novel to be both thoughtful and entertaining. Even the minor characters, such as Yasmin's colleagues, her friend Rania, and her elderly patients, are also interesting and well developed. Ali is always good at analyzing family, class, and social issues, and she does not disappoint here.

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LibraryThing member Clara53

One is not prepared for the high level of raw emotions as one starts reading. But the story line is swelling up with more and more of them as you turn the pages. Things pile on and on. Incredible, unfathomable revelations. And then there is also immigrants' theme, racism theme, Moslem question,

hospital politics and reality - this is the background that adds a lot to the family saga. But in the end, the denouement is a breath of fresh air and it then becomes very worthwhile having gone through so much heartache. I also have to point out the skillful lyrical touches sprinkled throughout the narrative and the dialogue. After "Brick Lane", "In the Kitchen", and "Alentejo Blue", I had a feeling that this would be another worthy novel by Monica Ali, and I was not mistaken.

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LibraryThing member pgchuis

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I have a feeling I read 'Brick Lane' when it first came out, although I can't remember anything about it. I was expecting this to be 'literary fiction', but somehow I didn't really notice the writing. There was plenty of plot going

on, and in many ways it was more like 'women's fiction'. The immature siblings Yasmin and Arif grew up, their mother came into her own, Joe got to the bottom of his sex addiction with the help of a therapist, people were unfaithful to one another, people explored their sexuality, babies were born etc etc. The short chapters swept the narrative along, and I was never bored, although my favourite sections were the ones on the geriatric ward where Yasmin dealt with her elderly patients and her snake of a boss Professor Shah.

I found the character arcs of Yasmin's parents unlikely - her mother in particular seemed to have a personality change - and the 'big reveal' of the origins of their 'love marriage' was less personal to them than I had been expecting and therefore disappointing. I'm not sure this book will really stay with me.

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LibraryThing member Booklover217

Love Marraige by Monica Ali goes into my "Books that Missed the Mark" category. I was really excited to read this one but it ended up not working for me. The summary drew me and I was looking forward to a Bengali perspective on marraige but too much time was wasted introducing minor characters and

side plots that didn't add anything to the overall story.

There was missed opportunity in giving layers to the main characters and the issues it aimed to explore. I was more than halfway through with the book when I realized the only thoughts I had were that I hated the future mother in law character and she represents everything that is wrong with "white feminism". I spent more time looking for chapters that featured certain characters' perspective than becoming invested in the story as a whole.

If you are interested in super slow paced stories with a large amount of characters over a deep plot, then this might work for you. I did appreciate the writing style and the moments where there was exploration of deeper meaning but there just weren't enough of these to keep me intrigued. Had this one had more refined editing, it would have made it a different reading experience. This is one I encourage you to read for yourself,, and form your own opinion. It just may work for you. Thanks to @dartfroggco for the gifted copy.

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LibraryThing member ccayne

I think my disappointment comes from high expectations. The novel is compulsively readable but it lacks depth and believability. The actions of virtually all the characters are not realistic. That said, it was entertaining and well written.

LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl

This novel begins with a dinner to introduce Yasmin's family to the mother of Joe, her fiancé, then expands to look at the two families and Yasmin and Joe's relationship. Yasmin grew up with the story of her parents's love marriage, with her mother's family being wealthy and her father a menial

worker who didn't graduate high school until his mid-twenties. He's now a respected doctor living in a quiet part of London, his wife occupies herself with cooking and bargain-hunting. But the details of their love match were never made clear and as Yasmin worries about her own love match, as her family begins to shatter, she wants the whole story. And Joe is seeing a therapist, who is pushing him in a direction he doesn't want to go; looking at his relationship with his (in)famous well-to-do mother. As family issues consume their thoughts and time, as their careers as doctors put another pressure on their emotions and their time, will Joe and Yasmin manage to get married?

Monica Ali is fantastic at pulling at the threads of family and seeing what emerges. Each character, from Yasmin's tense, regimented father to her unemployed and seemingly directionless younger brother, are given time and space to be full characters. Having each chapter follow a different character only works when each character is interesting and fully developed and their story ties in with the larger novel, things Ali pulls off effortlessly. This is an excellent novel and now I need to go back and read the books by this author that I've missed.

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LibraryThing member arubabookwoman

When the book opens, Yasmin and Joseph, two young doctors are engaged to be married. Yasmin is worried because she is bringing her parents, very old-fashioned Indian Muslims, to meet Joseph's mother, a radical feminist and public intellectual. Despite her worries, the parents hit it off, but over

the next six months before the wedding there are many unexpected changes in family dynamics and events in the lives of the characters, and we are kept wondering through-out whether the wedding will come off.

This is the story of a young man and woman finding their way in life, and a lovely family drama, with lots of humor thrown in. There is also a bit of a "clash of cultures" story here, though not necessarily the cultures you might think of from my description. As in any good novel, by the end, everyone is changed, and you feel you really know these characters.

Recommended.
3 1/2 stars

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LibraryThing member decaturmamaof2

This is a treasure of a book. ❤️ About how we see ourselves and our families - and about how we can totally not really know the people closest to us.

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