Book Review: FOR THE LOVE OF FRIENDS

Title: For the Love of Friends
Author: Sara Goodman Confino
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

It is the love of friends and family that gets 32-year-old Lily Weiss to agree to be a part of five weddings within weeks of each other. A talented writer, Lily handles PR for a science foundation. But all her mother is concerned about is that she doesn't have a marital prospect.

At first her office colleague Caryn Donaldson asks her to be her bridesmaid, then college roommate Sharon asks her the same. Then best friend Megan asks her to be maid of honour. Lily has barely any time to recover when younger brother Jake announces his plans for a destination wedding with fiancée, Madison, and then it’s younger sister Amy getting married to her boyfriend, Tyler.

Lily finds herself struggling under the financial implications of having to scrounge and save and come up with money to buy five bridesmaid dress, five pairs of shoes, besides the stress and cost of throwing showers and bachelorette parties and paying for gifts for the showers and weddings. And then there’s the added cost of the hotel room and airfare to Mexico. All this without a date and her own mother rubbing it in. 

The most unbearable part of it all is that on the night of Megan’s engagement, she got to know about Amy’s upcoming wedding, and in a moment of frustrated disappointment, drank too much and ended up sleeping with one of Megan’s groomsmen. And she doesn’t even know the guy’s name.

To make matters worse, there’s drama from Momzillas, Bridezillas, and even bridesmaids from hell. Thankfully, she makes a new friend in Alex, one of the groomsmen in Megan's wedding.

It’s a recipe for disaster. What’s a girl to do, if not vent? So Lily starts her anonymous blog, Bridemania, to talk about the drama that is now her life. The blog allows her to be sarcastic and snarky as she chooses to be. After all it's anonymous. But what will happen if people ever get wind of what she has written?

 

 

The writing is fun and witty; the style chatty. The book is a mix of narrative interspersed with emails, texts and blogposts.

There were naturally too many characters, and I agreed with Lily that they were mostly all alike. It was also hard to keep track of all the showers and parties and figure out just how badly Lily's bank balance was suffering as a result.

I did, however, enjoy the pop culture and current affairs references to Willy Wonka, Nellie Bly, Marty McFly, Doc Brown, Mean Girls, Austin Powers, Princess Leia, Goldilocks, Brangelina, even Azkaban.

 

 

I'd picked up this book, thinking that chick lit meant light reading but before long I found myself hyperventilating at the thought of all the Bridezillas, Momzillas and all their crazy demands.

Beneath the garb of chick-lit, the book felt like a cry for singles to be allowed space to be, for women to not be body-shamed, for mothers to treat their daughters with compassion and love, because the tone and content of a mother's voice is what a daughter carries all her life. 

I don’t know how American women can cope with all the crap that bridesmaids have to face.

Of course, in India, wedding madness has been elevated to an art form. But even so, I think it’s unfair to expect women to pay for expensive clothing that’s too horrible to wear again, and have to throw showers and parties besides. I’d never sign up. The book becomes a critique of this element of the wedding culture. Also, a critique of the culture that forces people to fit in or feel left out.

 

I wasn't too happy with the ending honestly. The snarky tone could have been pulled down a notch, but the excessive apologies meant that all Lily's grievances were not only never fully addressed but also summarily dismissed. I felt that Lily should have been allowed to make a point about the fact that the wedding culture is so commercialised and that there was so little emphasis on the significance of the marriage. 

Plus, the end of Sharon's friendship was unrequired. I felt bemused and aggrieved to note that while she broke off the friendship, it didn't stop her from keeping the gift that Lily sent.  

(I read this book through NetGalley. Thank you, NetGalley, the author and the publisher.)

Book Review: WARPAINT

Title: Warpaint
Author: JJ Maya
Publisher: Amazon Media EU
Pages: 198
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Willow Campbell, a 33-year-old makeup artist with no family and no friends but her colleagues and her overbearing roommate, leaves hometown Glasgow in Ireland to go live with her handsome new American husband Rick Delgado in New York. Rick has an apartment in Manhattan, and though she has only known him for six weeks, what could go wrong? The course of their love is charted in a little yellow book, and Willow is full of hope.

Willow is sold on romance but it is a rude awakening that awaits her in New York. On arriving at the building, she realises that the fancy apartment of her dreams is nothing but a loft reeking of cigarettes and infested with ants. Worse, she finds in the bathroom scanty underwear and other evidence of a woman’s presence.

Rick’s ex-girlfriend, Isabella, tells Willow that she is expecting Rick’s child. Suddenly nothing is right. Desperate to escape the shame of having to be deported back to the life she left behind, Willow must find herself a job while proving to the authorities that she and Rick are happily married. It is the only way that her Green card can be processed.

She finds herself a job at a department store, D’Arcy, somehow breaking through the reserve of the formidable owner, Gigi Gerson, known to her employees as Mrs G. She finds a friend in Jackson, a fellow Irish who came over with the man of his dreams and found despair. But it isn’t smooth sailing. Isabella is also employed at the same department store and Willow finds herself thwarted by her at every step.

But Willow is too angry with Rick to even attempt a compromise with him. Especially after she buys a ticket to Glasgow and is convinced by Jackson to give her romance with Rick another chance. She returns to the apartment, hoping to find Rick heartbroken and finds Isabel and Rick doing things they shouldn’t.

But then Mrs G offers her a way out. If she can win the makeup competition, then she could cement her place in America. But Isabella is offering stiff competition. Will she succeed?

 

 

This chick-lit book was a fun read. I liked the idea of Willow making her own place in a foreign city, moving on from the obscurity of her life in Glasgow to working as a makeup artist in New York, totally unfazed by the disaster that her romance had turned into.

Willow is the kind of character who acts first, and thinks later. Most of the problems she suffers are a result of her failure to think things through.

Music plays a huge role in the book between songs playing in Rick’s home, Jackson’s home, or D’Arcy’s, it seemed as if everything had a musical score which spoke to Willow.

One thing I really liked was how New York felt like a character in itself. The author re-created its crowds, its culture and its vibe. It piqued my desire to see this glorious city for myself someday.

There were some mistakes. A man called Cecil is qualified as the doorman of the apartment building the second times his name is mentioned, not the first, leaving me to wonder who he was.

Another thing that I found irritating was the one tear and the two fat tears that were constantly sliding down Willow’s cheeks. Rick had a single bead of sweat. Just as annoying.

The whole romance between Willow and Rick would have felt more real to us if we had seen their courtship up close, but we are only part of the picture after

I’m not generally into makeup, but in Willow’s hands, makeup is warpaint that gives people confidence by helping them to hide their blemishes.

Willow made me care about her even though I generally don’t care about the fashion and makeup industry. 

(I read this book through NetGalley. Thank you, NetGalley, the author and the publisher.)

Book Review: INDIAN MAIDENS BUST LOOSE

Title: Indian Maidens Bust Loose
Author: Vidya Samson
Publisher: Self-published
Pages: 347

Indian Maidens Bust Loose by Vidya Samson was a fun, quirky and charming read, and I enjoyed it very much. Vidya’s style is cute and funny, sometimes quietly, so you find yourself chuckling, at other times outrightly so you find yourself laughing out loud.

Vidya’s humour is contagious and before long, you find yourself a fly on the wall of the Desai household, the unseen guest at their board, where much of the fun takes place.

The story concerns the four-member Desai family, Papa Rasik, Ma Meena and daughters Nisha and Vinita, who live in the home of Meena’s mother, Naani. Meena’s father has died, and it is the death of this stern patriarch that causes Damini, the other daughter who ran off with her American musician-lover to the US, to consider a visit home to India after 25 years of being away.

The impending arrival of Damini, Meena’s sister, with her daughters, Lauren and Amber throws the Desai family into turmoil, providing the girls a respite from the steady stream of ineligible and loser suitors, and the faintly discouraging and dysfunctional family. Papa and Ma both rant against the lack of Western values.

The stage is set for a confrontation.

The adventures pile on thick and fast from the time the Americans land at Ahmedabad airport. The trusted Maruti 800 adds to the fun, pitting the family against a crazy mob. These events are followed by the theft of Damini’s bag at a local expo, followed by the subsequent nabbing of the thief, power outages, interminable suitor visits, much to the consternation of Nisha and Vinita, a peaceful protest, outside the municipal authority to demand water, which ends up in the four cousins being thrown into jail, not to forget the rescue of an urchin at a garbage dump, an elopement from a marriage pandal, and a cow adopted by Papa as a mascot that would bring wealth to the family. 

The book has all the ingredients that might be completely easy stewing in a Bollywood potboiler, sewn together by Vidya’s humour and charming writing.

First person narrator Nisha Desai makes flippant and irreverent remarks that make you think. Dinner had the feel of a condemned man’s last meal.

About her father’s overeagerness to get her and her sister married , she says, Apparently he resented the food we ate.

What I had long ago taken for granted, what had become all but invisible to me, now loomed large and embarrassing. This refers to the mandatory judgment of India by Western eyes.

There are antagonists galore. There is the BSR, short for Bharati Sanskruti ke Rakshak, modeled on a real life organization. Fictional, its antics are scarily real. The name loosely translates to Protectors of Indian Culture, and you know how dangerous that can get. Unlimited power in the hands of the rabid.

There is Gita, whose gossip can destroy reputations and homes.

There is Papa, who disapproves of almost everything that his daughters do, and Ma, who does not have a loving and affectionate relationship with her daughters.

And then there are the other characters, who drive this book on.

They include Damini, and her daughters, Lauren and Amber. These three women are the core of the book, and the daughters especially push the action forward with their forthright attitudes and their outspokenness. Their behaviour is refreshing in contrast with the Desai girls, who are inhibited by circumstances and family compulsions.

The lines that the characters speak are all funny. An additional element of humour is brought on by the strange English spoken by Papa, Ma and Naani. But generally between Damini with her new-age science, Naani and her proverbs, Papa’s BSR leanings and rabid philosophy, the, there is plenty of food for amusement. Some of the most laugh-out-loud moments are brought on by the cousins’ introduction to the Indian toilet.

The chapter names are quirky and colourful, as are the cast of characters. Only Nisha comes across as insipid in comparison with the others. She was a foil to the others, whose actions were the plot of the story.

Such a pity, since we know she is far from boring. Her thoughts are so interesting, but that didn’t stop me from feeling disappointed in her as a character.

Nisha wants to work, preferably in the US, but her dad won’t let her. Her reasons for wanting to live in the US are unconvincing.

She tries to ingratiate herself with her aunt and cousins, in the hope that they will support her American Dream, when her Papa clearly won’t. This was another thing that appeared selfish. If her father wouldn’t let her work in a TV channel in Ahmedabad, she could have considered moving to another city. 

Harbouring dreams of living and working in the US seemed too far-fetched, and the means she adopted to achieve her dreams, cosying up to her cousins when she is not being shortlisted by a rich American suitor, aren’t at all the sort to endear her to us.

Nisha also has a penchant for reading romances, and towards the end of the novel she takes to likening real situations to the plots of the novels she reads. Had this happened throughout the book, it would have been more consistent. As it is, it only shows up towards the end, making it appear to be a hastily contrived device.

Even the beginning of her tentative relationship with Jay, the neighbour’s nephew, seems hastily added on, to give her a happy ending. In contrast, I admired Vinita for taking risks to ensure that her marriage with Ashok became a reality.

The end of the book seemed totally forced, and I found my interest flagging as a result. I wished the Americans didn’t have to return. They kept this book simmering hot, and it was fun while they were around.

Much as the ingredients seem like they belong to a chick-lit novel, and the title also gives that impression, I would hesitate to call this chick-lit. There is so much more to this book.

Vidya effectively manages to raise a number of serious issues through her funny book and does complete justice to them too. These include the differences between the East and the West, the perennial debate about the lack of moral values, the relationships between sisters across generations, superstition as a way of life, and the lack of basic rights such as water, among other things.

If only the narrator had been a stronger character, I’d cheer even more for this book.

Vidya Samson, take a bow!