Reader Score
83%
83% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 14 reviews on
"Cultural clashes, political satire, Oedipal conflicts, elegant prose--they're all here in this romp of a book." --Oprah Daily
A Phenomenal Book Club Pick and a New York Times Book Review Group Text Selection, Love Marriage is a glorious moving novel from Booker Prize shortlisted Monica Ali, who has "an inborn generosity that cannot be learned" (The New York Times Book Review).
In present-day London, 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 "riveting" (BookPage, starred review) social comedy and a moving, revelatory story of two cultures, two families, and two people trying to understand one another that's "sure to please Ali's fans and win some new ones" (Publishers Weekly).
Joanna Rakoff is a novelist and memoirist.
I loved, loved this deeply wise, absorbing novel, which I read months back, and still think about nearly every day. It is also so deeply a novel of London—my favorite city—and made me long to return.
Ninth novel The Three Graces out now. "I write to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." FRLS etc
I really enjoyed Monica Ali’s Love Marriage, but as a reader who treasures plot, I find it dispiriting @NewStatesman critic ( otherwise positive) complaining of “too many storylines” and melodrama. Toto, we’re not in the 1990s any more.
My next book, Holding The Baby is out now. I also wrote Square One and The Panic Years. Vogue columnist. Journalist. A wholesome plank. #savetheNHS
This week I listened to Love Marriage by Monica Ali and it has been such good company https://t.co/TWu5tcR6zl https://t.co/OcSdbznXwL
"Quick footed and absorbing... The playful clash of cultures evolves into a subtle exploration of the ways in which both immigrant and nonimmigrant families have shaped their children, transmitting unexplored trauma across generations." --The New Yorker
"Cultural clashes, political satire, Oedipal conflicts, elegant prose--they're all here in this romp of a book."
--Hamilton Cain, Oprah Daily
"Ali successfully skewers everyone--white feminists, children of immigrants, overconfident male doctors...funny and satisfying."
--Jenny Singer, Glamour
"An absorbing and meaty exploration of love, family and culture..."
--Carole V. Bell, NPR
"Such lively characters, they practically waltz off the page to hand readers save-the-date cards... I came to care deeply about this flawed pair, whose destiny Ali unfurls with obvious glee and a touch of poetry."
--Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times Book Review