Brick Lane
Ratings13
Average rating3.5
Monica Ali's debut novel, Brick Lane, was published in 2003 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name.
Carrying into her adult years a sense of fatalism instilled during her hardscrabble birth, Nazneen finds herself married off to a man twice her age and moved to London, where she begins to wonder if she has a say in her own destiny.
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This is a challenging book: long but filled with small moments that add up to a compelling story. Nazneen is from Bangladesh and has an arranged marriage to a much-older Bengal man in London. The book covers 16 years of her marriage, with flashbacks to her childhood as well as letters from her sister, who is struggling to survive in Dhaka after running off for a “love marriage.” There is a lot going on in this book, but what I found most interesting was the process Nazneen goes through of figuring out if she loves her husband, what that even means, and who she is as a wife, mother, and person. I also really enjoyed getting a glimpse into a different part of London than I have previously been exposed to.
