Format: Ebook 

Firstly, I should preface this review by stating that my star rating is very much based on feeling and enjoyment while reading so take it with a pinch of salt. 

This just didn’t work for me. It feels like a book I’ve read and didn’t enjoy already this year but in a different setting. I completely understand what the author was trying to do here (or at least what I assume they were trying to do) but frankly, it was all a bit ridiculous at times. And yet, it almost wasn’t ridiculous enough. It either needed to go completely into the humour so that it could be read as such, or it needed to be a more serious portrayal. I’m not saying I would like falling down on the side on humour any more than I liked it currently, but I don’t think the mix particularly worked. We’d be considering a very serious point – injustices faced by women in India, particularly in their marriages – and then all of a sudden there would be a joke or some other cringey moment. I just couldn’t reconcile the two. 

I didn’t love any of the characters. Our main character Geeta is prickly, and that’s ok, but the way the women behaved towards each other generally was very off putting. I wouldn’t necessarily say this was inaccurate from my own experiences of female friendships (although I will say the way they behaved felt much younger than into their 30s, which to clarify is not ‘old’) but it felt quite immature. Perhaps strangely then, the development of the friendships, both with the other women and with Karem, also felt like the highlight of the novel. It felt like a good commentary on friendship between women, and the risk of romantic relationships to those friendships, even if they were quite juvenile in character. 

Overall, I felt this had promise but honestly, I wouldn’t have continued reading it had it not been a book club book. I enjoyed elements but it really wasn’t for me.