A review by maketeaa
Brick Lane by Monica Ali

challenging emotional reflective slow-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

4.5

reading brick lane as someone who has literally lived in the same area feels like realising that the colour your room is painted has actually been wallpaper all this time. monica ali is a master of description, of creating a universe out of the universe we already have, and inviting us into the culture-clashing, diasporic world of the bengali community of east london. it is in this arena that ali explores the family dynamics of a quintessentially bengali household in a country that is not their own. nazneen, the protagonist, a village girl who became the young bride of her husband, chanu, holds onto the very foundation on which she was born into this world -- it is all up to fate. but as she navigates her space in a country where she's confronted with challenges to what is almost a fatalistic approach to life, an approach that is inherently a patriarchal creation that discourages agency in married bengali women, nazneen realises that there is a space for her to navigate. from the sickness of her first child, to her small rebellions against her husband, to her affair with bengal tigers chairman karim, nazneen learns to conflate her trust in fate, her tawakkul, with the necessity to take action -- as said in one of my favourite lines in the book, 'allah provided a way, and she found it'.