Reviews with content warning for Death - The Marriage Game

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Marriage Game by Sara Desai

19 reviews

overflowingshelf's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Story Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Narrator Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CW: domestic abuse; physical abuse; emotional abuse; sexism; toxic relationship; medical content (heart attack & paralyzation); death of a sibling; misogyny; car accident

The potential of this far surpassed the execution. I was so here for the premise as it sounded so cute! But I ended up HATING some of the characters and didn’t buy the romance.

First off, all the men (except for Layla’s dad) are the WORST™. Truly, they are the most sleazy, scummy, rude men I’ve ever seen. If I encountered any of them in real life, I would have all the warning bells going off.

Our main male lead, Sam Mehta, is not the guy for me. The dude is a walking red flag. I feel like he’s supposed to come off as flirty and suave, but it came off as cocky, arrogant, creepy, and overly sexual. Like, dude, can you stop thinking about her breasts every two seconds? Layla did not welcome his advances in the beginning so it could easily be read as sexual harassment. He’s also so blinded by revenge that it negatively impacts all the relationships in his life – with his family, friends, and even Layla. Sam also does some severely unethical things to get revenge, even though his sister would rather leave the past in the past. He fails to support the women in his life when they need him and instead stifles and hurts them instead of building them up. I feel like he’s supposed to be a sympathetic character, but instead, he comes off as heartless, sleazy, and controlling to me, so I was not a fan.

Honestly, thank god for Layla’s dad as he seemed like the only man with his heart in a good place. I loved him and didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. All he wants is for his daughter to be happy (even if he goes behind her back to do it). He even can make Sam see reason regarding the situation with Sam’s sister. He’s a delight, and his love for his family shines through. Layla’s whole family is truly a delight and one of the bright spots of this book, as they really support each other and have each other’s back, even if they also get on each other’s nerves. It felt like a real family, with so much love and warmth there.

I also struggled a bit with Layla, particularly towards the end. She’s not a perfect person by any means, which I appreciated. She’s honestly a bit of a mess, but she knows that. I love that she turned to her family when she realized she needed to find herself, as they truly love her unconditionally and want the best for her. But Layla started to get on my nerves towards the end. I wanted to see more growth from her, to be honest. She makes some genuinely questionable decisions towards the end that had me screaming. Also, the whole thing with her business and how having a name is the most important thing irritated me. A name does not a business make.

I feel like this book was trying so hard to be a RomCom at times (despite some pretty heavy subject matters), but it didn’t come across that way. The setups for the big romantic moments feel very RomCom-y as there is some humor laced in them, but it fell flat for me.

Unsurprisingly, I struggled with the romance between Sam and Layla. Some of that is due to my intense dislike of Sam, but there also wasn’t any chemistry between the two of them. This book is supposed to be an enemies-to-lovers type story, but there was none of that sizzling passion, that rapid-fire banter that is a staple of that trope. When they kissed the first time, I was like meh. And then the sexy times felt so uncomfortable and not sexy to me – probably because Sam was giving me the ick. I also wish their romantic relationship had more time to grow. Things felt like they happened very quickly, and I wasn’t sure what drew them to each other and why they loved one enough. I just wanted more from the romance than I got.

I listened to this on audio, and I think Soneela Nankani is an easy narrator to listen to. I did find myself questioning if her delivery of some of Sam’s lines made them come off more sleazy or if it was the lines themselves, but I’ve landed on it’s more the lines themselves as her performance overall was pretty solid. She captured the characters well and did her best with what she was given.

I so wanted to like this book as it sounded like such fun, but by the end, I couldn’t wait to be done with it. That’s the worst feeling – when you cannot wait to finish a book because you’re not feeling it. And I truly wasn’t feeling this. But I don’t want to count Sara Desai out, as I did like her writing style – I just hated the characters in this. I’m skeptical if I’ll continue with this series (I’ve heard some mixed things about some of the other books), but I am intrigued by her newest book, To Have and To Heist, so I may try that instead.

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avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

After a terrible breakup, Layla returns home and decides to open her own business in the office above her family's restaurants. But her dad has already leased the office to Sam. When Sam arrives for his first day in his new office, he finds his polar opposite and new enemy Layla at his desk. So, they make a wager, if Sam helps Layla find and go through a list of potential husbands then Sam gets the office. But maybe they're a perfect match, for each other.
The book was as predictable as most contemporary romances. It had a good amount of humor but not quite enough spice. Most of the sex was off page, with some foreplay depicted.
I think this book should have been at least 2 hours shorter. I got to around 69% and wondered how there could be so much of the book left. It just felt very drawn out.
Overall a pretty good book, just too long and with not enough spice. Also, a bit heavier than your usual contemporary romance, which I wasn't expecting.

Extra ratings: Fluff - 2/5 Heartfelt- 3.5/5 Helpful-NA Horror- 0/5 Inspiration- NA Love aka Romance-4.5/5 Mystery-0/5 Predictability- 4.5/5 Spice- 2/5 Suspense- 0/5 Tear 1.5/5 Thrill- 0/5 Humor-3.5/5

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vj_thompson's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

This book was an emotional roller coaster that I did not need. I wasn’t a fan of Sam and Layla’s relationship. I thought it was very unhealthy. I also hated how every male character was written. Not every man constantly thinks about banging women…

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lilacs_book_bower's review against another edition

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At 70 pages in, I could not believe how much I disliked the hero. He was sexist, rude, heartless, egotistical and has a job that I morally couldn't get behind. He and the heroine were having weird convos in front of other people, and it's confusing. Is the other person just pretending not to hear them? The blocking got kind of weird for the scenes. Apparently later in the book he betrays the heroine quite badly and I am glad to dodge that. I had been looking forward to this one, so it's a bummer.

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sweetchocolatez's review against another edition

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emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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shector1's review

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challenging emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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starklinqs's review

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Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.0

I just know Sam listens to Andrew Tate.

I really wanted to like this. I love reading books from other desi authors and I LOVE cheesy romcom books. But there was way too much I thought was…super gross while reading this:

My biggest issue: Sam is just super misogynistic and kind of creepy the entire book. If this was something he actually grew from, that would be great! But while Layla rightfully calls him out at the climax of the book, he doesn’t actually change his behavior. He’s “overprotective” of Layla to the point that he’s causing fights, or almost getting into fights, with every possible suitor he meets (and he barely knows Layla at this point!). He says misogynistic shit like “the man should drive” (????) and at the end still holds onto this stuff and says the man should propose. He has HORRIBLE friends except for John (who tbh, I started shipping with Layla more lmao. Sam’s ass deserved to get dumped) but despite all his friends being terrible people they continue to be in his life. Not to mention the climax of the book gets brushed over remarkably fast - Layla’s parents weren’t too keen on Sam BEFORE that climax, and I don’t know how what happened after didn’t completely sever any form of reconciliation.
Sam’s protectiveness is just dressed up possessiveness, this dude is just covered in red flags but I guess I’m supposed to root for him because he’s hot and has a tragic backstory (which isn’t even his, it’s his sister’s, and even after being called out about trying to get Justice without seeing what she wants he….still does that). It’s just really weird to me, that in a book that specifically calls out the sexism of the suitors and the abuse of another character, that the love interest is then consistently misogynistic and displays weird, creepy behavior throughout the book.
The objectification. I love seeing characters attracted to each other but this was so much and so often. I don’t need to read Layla’s “breasts bounced gently under her filmy blouse”. There were so many lines that drew me out of the book that I looked back at the author because it felt so much like it was written from a man who sees women as sex objects (I guess kudos to Desai on that since it’s from Sam’s POV). Sam himself is borderline sexually harassed by a character in the book and it’s treated as a quirky funny thing, because he’s sooo hot that these things just happen.
So. Much. Miscommunication. About the viral video. About the dating. About the design papers. About the dating again. Characters don’t have to be completely mature all the time but Jesus Christ.

There were also little things that bothered me - her dad apparently knows her the best out of everyone but then sets her up with objectively horrendous men (like an ex gang member slash current criminal? Seriously? That made it into his list of yes-es?), the need to explain just about everything (like not just Indian things, at some point the book explained who Gordon Ramsey was), the weird entitled behavior Daisy and Layla had when they first used the office - even if I hate Sam, that whole thing was super weird on their part.

This book ultimately reads about a woman who’s had horrible relationship after horrible relationship and then ends up with a walking red flag.

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rensreading's review

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

a cheesy rom-com

i don’t mind cheesy rom-coms in the least. so that’s not the reason i didn’t really like this.

i hated the love interest. i hated all the undealt with misogyny. i hated the way the author wrote when in sam’s pov and didn’t seem to find a problem with what they were writing.

the plot was fine. the story was okay. layla was underwhelmingly average and sam was awful. i liked royce better than i did him and that says a LOT.

i did understand sam’s need to get justice for his sister though. i think others calling him selfish for putting his sister first is also misogynistic and stupid. its wrong of him to quit being a doctor and get his sister’s ex-husband in jail for what he did to her simply bc he isn’t fulfilling every poc parents’ dream by being a doctor? bullshit.

all in all, i’d give this 3 stars and 2 🌶🌶 as well.

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blackveilbeccy's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This started off slow but by the end I waa really invested. There was a great, diverse ensemble cast and I found the characters super loveable. Can’t wait to read the next one!

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rachelkays's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

NOT A ROMANCE WHERE THE GIRL PROPOSES 😭 I was appalled. Other than that, this was a very safe, averagely entertaining romance. I liked the story but at times I felt like the writing jumped around too much. Layla and Sam were very Wattpad in both an enjoyable and cringey way. The spice was there but lacking. One thing I did like was how quickly their miscommunication problems were always solved. This was a very solid, Hallmark channely angst-less romance.

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