etc.

I usually enjoy books that delve into the gritty details of the post-colonial immigrant experience, and while I liked this one well enough, I have to admit that I honestly couldn’t see what all the hoopla was about. Nazneen, born and raised in a small village in Bangladesh, moves to England at 18 to live with her new husband in an alliance that is arranged by her parents. The novel traces her adjustment to a man she grows to respect and appreciate more than love, and to a country that is at once foreign and at the same time familiar. Ali’s style is engaging enough and her characters are sympathetically drawn (including Chanu, the oafish yet mildly lovable husband), but I guess I was searching each page for signs of “Britain’s most promising new novelist” and I just couldn’t find it. Sorry.