Book club: The Newlyweds book review

Image source: Oprah.com

Combine the time off I took for the holidays, and the extra cold and dreary weather ATX is getting these days, and I have had plenty of opportunities to curl up with a good book lately! And curl up I have, with your book club choice for January — The Newlyweds, by Nell Freudenberger. For those of you who are first timers, here’s the synopsis of the book:

“In The Newlyweds, we follow the story of Amina Mazid, who at age twenty-four moves from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York, for love. A hundred years ago, Amina would have been called a mail-order bride. But this is an arranged marriage for the twenty-first century: Amina is wooed by—and woos—George Stillman online. For Amina, George offers a chance for a new life and a different kind of happiness than she might find back home. For George, Amina is a woman who doesn’t play games. But each of them is hiding something: someone from the past they thought they could leave behind. It is only when they put an ocean between them—and Amina returns to Bangladesh—that she and George find out if their secrets will tear them apart, or if they can build a future together.”

SPOILER ALERT

This book is pretty long and spans years of drama, so at times I found myself wanting to whip out the Wrap It Up Box from Chapelle’s Show (warning: NSFW).  BUT, all in all I quite enjoyed it, and appreciated the complex exploration of our heroine Amina’s character and her experience as she adapts to a new marriage and life in America. Amina has taken a huge risk in accepting George’s offer to be his wife — not only in assuming that she knows who he is beyond the shadow of a doubt, but also that he will comply with the internal life goals she has set for herself (the big one being moving her parents to America to live with them within a few years time). In their first few years of marriage, Amina and George battle cultural differences, infertility, inlaw stress, religion, unemployment, deceit, and lingering past lovers, to name a few. Marriage is hard enough, and when you throw these other significant wrenches into the situation, it’s clear that this couple’s experience is not going to be easy breezy. That said, Amina and George do a pretty good job making things work, and while I’m not sure if they ever develop a passionate love, they do *love* each other, and arrive at a cadence that works for both parties — at first. Just when Amina and George have found a safe, comfortable and even loving place, Amina discovers that George’s past isn’t what it seemed, and that he is still in love with an old flame. With their relationship in a most fragile state, George finally gives his blessing for Alina’s parents to come to America and live with them. Amina makes the trek back to Bangladesh to retrieve them, and in doing so realizes that she, too has lingering feelings from her past. No action is taken on either side, though, and at the end of the book when all of the secrets are out and the dirty laundry is aired, Alina is on a plane back to America with her parents in tow. We’re left wondering if a rosy future is even a slight possibility for Amina and George after all they have been through, and know that they have even more challenges yet to face — the least of which being the fact that they will have to support Alina’s parents through the immense culture shock they are about to experience, and have a new set of permanent roomies. I’m pretty Type A, and typically like to have the loose ends tied up at the end of a novel. But with this one, I was actually OK with leaving some things open to interpretation because doing so invited a sense of reality that would have been lost for me had everything worked out perfectly in the end. Life is complicated, and while this couple’s situation is extraordinary, it’s a reminder that every relationship has its own peaks and valleys. I would definitely recommend this book for an interesting, thoughtful read. Now, on to next month! Here’s what I’ve got for you to choose from:

Inferno: A Novel, by Dan Brown (YES!). “In his international blockbusters The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown masterfully fused history, art, codes, and symbols. In this riveting new thriller, Brown returns to his element and has crafted his highest-stakes novel to date. In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces…Dante’s Inferno. Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust…before the world is irrevocably altered.”

Me Before You: A Novel, by Jojo Moyes. “Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is. Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.”

The Time Keeper, by Mitch Albom. “From the author who’s inspired millions worldwide with books like Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven comes his most imaginative novel yet, The Time Keeper–a compelling fable about the first man on earth to count the hours. The man who became Father Time. In Mitch Albom’s newest work of fiction, the inventor of the world’s first clock is punished for trying to measure God’s greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time. He returns to our world–now dominated by the hour-counting he so innocently began–and commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, he must save them both. And stop the world to do so. Told in Albom’s signature spare, evocative prose, this remarkably original tale will inspire readers everywhere to reconsider their own notions of time, how they spend it and how precious it truly is.”