[Review] Unmarriageable - Soniah Kamal

Summary: A scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won’t make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and have children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her other literary heroes and hopes to inspire the girls to dream of more.

When an invitation arrives to the biggest wedding their small town has seen in years, Mrs. Binat, certain that their luck is about to change, excitedly sets to work preparing her daughters to fish for rich, eligible bachelors. On the first night of the festivities, Alys’s lovely older sister, Jena, catches the eye of Fahad “Bungles” Bingla, the wildly successful—and single—entrepreneur. But Bungles’s friend Valentine Darsee is clearly unimpressed by the Binat family. Alys accidentally overhears his unflattering assessment of her and quickly dismisses him and his snobbish ways. As the days of lavish wedding parties unfold, the Binats wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a proposal—and Alys begins to realize that Darsee’s brusque manner may be hiding a very different man from the one she saw at first glance. (Pub Date: Jan 22, 2019)

And I made the same mistake again... This is a book inspired by Pride and Prejudice, telling us how it would be if it happened in Pakistan circa 2000.

So... it's not always that I complain about this but I'm not too into the idea of really copying the whole plot, which is a lot what happens here. What is the problem of going from the same beginning and just letting the characters go where they want to? Surprise me. Please! And that's my main problem here, it was too predictable most of the time. Not as much as a lot of the retellings I've read but still enough to make me feel bored.

The other problem was the rhythm, especially when you already know what's happening, this went too slowly for me. I confess I started skipping much of the description after a point because the book just wouldn't go anywhere.

Now we've put the issues behind, if you're still reading, know that this book had lots of nice things. It felt like I did a homestay with a Pakistani (large) family. The writer isn't some westerner who just did research, she knows what she's talking about and you can see it from the way she writes. It was almost as if she'd been right there with Alys.

From the adaptation, my favorite thing were the name changes. They did take a few giggles from me, they were mostly straight forward, not taking any effort to guess which character from the original it was.

I also loved the progression, how the two come together, how Alys learns and evolves during the story, and how each of the characters ends up. 

In all, this was kind of fun but the predictability and long descriptions (though justified but still too long) took most of it for me. I'll surely read more from the author as long as it's not an adaptation of a book I'm familiar with. 


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.


Rating: 3 out of 5.