30 Sep / Grown-Up Pose by Sonya Lalli [in Booklist]
After last year’s The Matchmaker’s List, Sonya Lalli and Soneela Nankani return together for another cross-cultural dramedy about the challenges of balancing filial duties and modern relationships.
Anu Desai was the perfect daughter for her immigrant Indian parents: she married the first (and only) boy she kissed, became a nurse because she was told it was a good career, cooked family recipes and kept house, and provided the oldsters with a most-adored grandchild. But by 30, she’s turned her life upside down: she threw Neil out a year ago, she’s caught her new boyfriend already cheating, she’s bought a yoga studio on a whim, and she’s running off to Europe to find herself. When she’s forced back home with her (still) mother-in-law’s sudden hospitalization, she soon enough realizes she’s had everything she wanted all along.
Predictable? Clichéd? Well, yes, twice-over. But Nankani convincingly persists as she tirelessly, effortlessly switches accents, ages, genders with practiced ease, maintaining relaxed control between families, continents, and generations. Her enhancements provide Anu more than the narrative second chance, elevating the pedestrian to positively pleasing.
Review: “Media,” Booklist, September 1, 2020
Readers: Adult
Published: 2020