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thephdivabooks's review against another edition
4.0
After reading The Matchmaker’s List last year, Sonya Lalli became a must-read author for me. She writes these incredible contemporary fiction novels that explore the push and pull between tradition and modern life on Indian women. Her latest novel Grown-Up Pose is fresh, heart-warming, thought-provoking, and compulsively readable to the very last page.
I almost want to call this a coming of age book, but that would imply a main character in adolescence approaching adulthood. I think there needs to be a better genre to describe that transition from college through your early 30s. For many people (and our main character Anu), this is a period of time when our lives develop quickly and we don’t always get a chance to finish growing up.
Anu is an Indian woman living in Canada, and as the book opens she is nearly a year into a separation with her husband Neil, struggling to manage the co-parenting. Anu’s marriage happened the way good Indian marriages do—they met young (mere teenagers), courted, married young, and had a child. Anu has done everything right to be a good Indian daughter and wife. She does the cooking and cleaning, she became a nurse, and she does the bulk of the childcare duties.
Years into their marriage, Anu suddenly realizes how unhappy she is. She is in a job she isn’t passionate about, barely has any friends, and basically acts as a parent to both her daughter and her husband. Now during the separation, she has started dating someone new, but she’s not really getting the experiences she missed getting married so young.
On her journey to find herself, Anu finds herself purchasing a failing yoga studio, having some reckless nights out, and amidst all of the trial and errors, Anu may just come out of the other side finally able to be her best grown-up self.
One of the main themes of this book is the pressure put on Indian women, and really women in general, to be a certain type of person and make the right steps in life. In The Matchmaker’s List, we saw a woman who defied those early, now uncertain if she will be able to find the things she rejected as a young woman. In Grown-Up Pose, we see a woman who did everything she was supposed to and then a decade later she realizes she is going through the motions of a life she isn’t sure she wanted.
If we haven’t lived a little and made some mistakes, how can we ever know if we got the life we wanted?
A story full of ups and downs, laughs and heartfelt moments, and telling the story of a woman who was forced to grow up before she really lived.
Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.
I almost want to call this a coming of age book, but that would imply a main character in adolescence approaching adulthood. I think there needs to be a better genre to describe that transition from college through your early 30s. For many people (and our main character Anu), this is a period of time when our lives develop quickly and we don’t always get a chance to finish growing up.
Anu is an Indian woman living in Canada, and as the book opens she is nearly a year into a separation with her husband Neil, struggling to manage the co-parenting. Anu’s marriage happened the way good Indian marriages do—they met young (mere teenagers), courted, married young, and had a child. Anu has done everything right to be a good Indian daughter and wife. She does the cooking and cleaning, she became a nurse, and she does the bulk of the childcare duties.
Years into their marriage, Anu suddenly realizes how unhappy she is. She is in a job she isn’t passionate about, barely has any friends, and basically acts as a parent to both her daughter and her husband. Now during the separation, she has started dating someone new, but she’s not really getting the experiences she missed getting married so young.
On her journey to find herself, Anu finds herself purchasing a failing yoga studio, having some reckless nights out, and amidst all of the trial and errors, Anu may just come out of the other side finally able to be her best grown-up self.
One of the main themes of this book is the pressure put on Indian women, and really women in general, to be a certain type of person and make the right steps in life. In The Matchmaker’s List, we saw a woman who defied those early, now uncertain if she will be able to find the things she rejected as a young woman. In Grown-Up Pose, we see a woman who did everything she was supposed to and then a decade later she realizes she is going through the motions of a life she isn’t sure she wanted.
If we haven’t lived a little and made some mistakes, how can we ever know if we got the life we wanted?
A story full of ups and downs, laughs and heartfelt moments, and telling the story of a woman who was forced to grow up before she really lived.
Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.
possiblytheworstbookreviewer's review against another edition
It was already just an ok read, but then arrived the 'lets punch that guy to show that I'm a strong women who shan't be messed with' scene. And it's just a no from me. Having someone non violent just punch someone isn't character growth. Especially since there was no escalation to the situation to arrive to a punch. I don't know, it's probably just me, maybe I needed a reason to dnf.
seemadyal50's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
arzoosingh's review against another edition
1.0
i cant remember the last time i was this bored by a book. the characters were boring and there was no depth to them. it was predictable. i dont understand how someone can write a book thats neither plot nor character based.
ktlyonswoodhams's review against another edition
3.0
Quick, easy read. Basically a story about a woman who is having a 1/3rd life crisis & makes some rash decisions instead of going to therapy.
adw7984's review against another edition
3.0
I was pretty excited to receive this book but was left wanting a bit more once I finished. The flashbacks sprinkled throughout did not add anything to the story in my opinion.
A woman trying to find herself? That resonated with me and I really sympathized with Anu and was rooting for her. Life is about making mistakes and I think this book showed that in a very realistic way and still left you rooting for Anu.
I received this book through a GoodReads giveaway.
A woman trying to find herself? That resonated with me and I really sympathized with Anu and was rooting for her. Life is about making mistakes and I think this book showed that in a very realistic way and still left you rooting for Anu.
I received this book through a GoodReads giveaway.
saskiacb's review against another edition
4.0
This has the same overarching trope as After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and I absolutely could not get enough. Great characters and relationships, themes of family pressures, what it is to be a Good Mother, cultural expectations and how we fuse our own ideas with our cultural heritage and our own predicaments.
megatsunami's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars - started out a little choppy but I liked where it went.
tavernwench's review against another edition
4.0
Anu is a hard main character to root for, but a story about finding yourself is what I needed.