Yasmin Ghorami has always believed her parents to have had a perfect 'love marriage', a chance encounter leading to romance and happily-ever-after despite the difficulties they faced, establishing themselves in Britain and striving to provide the best for their children. Now she believes she's found the same herself - a fellow doctor, handsome, kind, caring, someone she's sure will make a good husband and father. Her only worry is how her traditional Muslim parents will get on with Joe's feminist, liberal, outspoken mother.
As the publisher's blurb says, "Love Marriage is a story about who we are and how we love in today's Britain - with all the complications and contradictions of life, desire, marriage and family. What starts as a captivating social comedy develops into a heart-breaking and gripping story of two cultures, two families and two people trying to understand one another."
Yasmin and Joe are in love, their wedding set for a few months' time, and all appears to be going well till their mothers get involved and take over the planning. Under the surface though, both of them have issues that need to be sorted before they finally commit, and as their mothers start to get to know each other a whole raft of family secrets come tumbling out. The foundations on which both Yasmin and Joe have built their lives suddenly seem very rocky.
It's funny (though I felt a little uncomfortable being a white Englishwoman laughing at Indian stereotypes), warm, compassionate, forgiving. Although it deals with issues surrounding class and culture, it is first and foremost a story about people, about how we define ourselves, and about the stories we tell to make sense of who we are.
I'd heard of Monica Ali but hadn't read her work before. Now I feel I should dash out and immerse myself in her back catalogue.
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