I enjoyed reading this book purely on the idea that a popular book like Pride and Prejudice can be adapted to another region of the world, a different culture, and a different time.

Unmarriageable is a modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice that takes place in Pakistan. I loved learning about the culture and marriage practices of a Pakistani family, and I would love to have more information about the accuracy of this novel. The cultural tidbits certainly kept me engaged in a story that I already knew.. I did find the characters a bit difficult to keep straight at times, but that may be due more to my barely passing knowledge of Pride and Prejudice than to the writing.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

This is a retelling of Pride & Predjudice set in 2001 and in Pakistan. I am a sucker for any Pride & Prejudice retelling and was lucky enough to receive an eARC. Pride and Prejudice is my favorite story. I have loved (almost) all the retellings I have read. There is just something so fun about sassy Elizabeth Bennet, the lovable mess of the Bennet family, and of course the wonderful Mr. Darcy. Put them together and you (almost) always get great story. As a disclaimer, I am not Pakistani so I will not be commenting on the representation. I loved seeing a diverse retelling of this story, but I am not able to say if it is accurate.

WHAT I LIKED:
I loved how Kamal was creative with the names, often in P&P retellings they either keep the names or just make up new ones.
How Alys and Darsee both loved books (they were book snobs quite a few times, but you know they are PRIDEFUL so I guess it is in character)
How feminist this is
Kamal made this her own, while still sticking to the original storyline. The Binat’s situation is a little different, but it works.
Mr. Binat was great (as always)


WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:
I did not like how Pride & Prejudice exists in the book. The novel starts with Alys teaching her students about Jane Austen and Pride & Prejudice. This was weird and I did not like it.
There are a lot of characters at times and since this is retelling I kept trying to figure out if I was supposed to recognize them.
I did not like how we saw other POV’s. Part of the joy of this novel is not knowing what Darcy (and others) are thinking.
There are a couple of one liners (made by the Mrs. Binat) that are not tasteful. I know she is inappropriate at times, but there was a one liner about “killing oneself” that did not sit well with me.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this retelling. It retained enough of the original story to satisfy me, while added enough twists to make it stand on it's own.

A Pakistani retelling of Pride and Prejudice? Sign me up!

3.75 stars. It's not perfect, and often it follows the original P&P plot a little too closely, especially with the characters' names and some famous lines and scenes from P&P that were a little too spot-on. Alysba (Alys) Binat as Elizabeth Bennet and Valentine Darsee are okay, but I draw the line at Jeorgeulla Wickaam and the "Looclus" (Lucas) clan. Humeria (Hammy) and Sumeria (Sammy) Bingla for the Bingley sisters was pretty funny, though. Mr. Collins is Farhat Kaleen, an older widower with three children; Charlotte Lucas is Sherry Looclus. The character makeovers of those last two were awesome, by the way.

I liked it best where it veered from P&P in some interesting ways; Sherry's point of view and subplot, for example, was really fascinating to me. The Elizabeth Bennet character, Alys, is strident in her feminism, enough so that the ultimate romantic wrap-up seems a little out of character. The traditional P&P plot is modernized in several ways, including her character (age 30, and fighting against some of the traditions of her country relating to marriage and the role of women), as well as a gay character and sympathetic discussion of abortion.

I really enjoyed the immersion into modern-day Pakistani culture. The moral quandaries transfer pretty well into current Pakistani culture, including the obsession with marrying well and the near-disaster that Lydia ("Lady") causes her family. The food sounded like it was to die for. And fairly frequently the novel was quite insightful into human relationships, in ways that aren't entirely owed to Jane Austen.

"I wanted to tell him about my kind and generous Jena, my fearless Alys, my artist Qitty, who holds her head up no matter what anyone says to her, and my Mari, who just wants everyone to go to heaven. Even my silly, selfish Lady, who doesn't know what is good for her and just wants to have a good time all the time. But I didn't tell him about any one of my daughters. He doesn't deserve to know a single thing about my precious girls."

Awww!

The writing is sometimes a bit clunky, especially when the author is making a social point. But it was still an interesting story, as long as you don't mind that it toes the P&P line pretty closely.

Content notes: a few F-bombs (4, to be exact). Some innuendos, but no other sexual content.

Ok, I have to admit, I loved this version of Pride and Prejudice.... Soniah Kamal writes with such precision and such care. She sticks pretty close to the original story in Unmarriageable. I loved the modern day Pakistan version as it really opened my eyes to some of the Pakistan customs and traditions. The sisters though, they won me over.... Jena (aka Jane in the original version) and Alys (Alice) are teachers. I like Alys free spirited independent heart and her loyalty to her family. She feels very much like she's the rescuer in so many ways.

Although the plot stays true to Pride and Prejudice, I think that Soniah Kamal modernizes the beloved romance stories with more depth on the issue of weight and being "fat" in a materialistic society. I love the way the character Qitty handles her weight and develops confidence in herself that isn't about her weight. This is an important issue very relevant today, even more so than when Jane Austen was writing Pride and Prejudice. There are other modern references and issues included too, which gives this classic tale a fresh look with new yet familiar faces.

The dynamics between the sisters are true to life how we can love and support each other while still tormenting each other at the same time. Lady, Alys' sister is a trainwreck but read Unmariageable to find out how she transforms her life into something good. The chemistry between Darsee and Alys is good... I can see their behavior slowly changing as they open up to the idea of romance between them.

The writing in Unmarriageable is good... I felt like I was there when Alys and her best friend Sherry were sneaking cigarettes in a hidden area of the local cemetery. The conversation flows, the settings are realistically written, and the characters have depth. Definitely worth the read!

Thanks to NetGalley, Soniah Kamal, and Random House Publishing Group for an advanced reader copy for me to enjoy and review. As always my opinions are my own!!

I really enjoyed this book. The writing was very good, and kept me very engaged from the beginning! It was at times hard to feel connected to the characters, but otherwise this was a good story.

I loved this modern-day take on Pride and Prejudice, set in Pakistan. While it’s been a very long time since I’ve read Jane Austen, the parallels in the characters ‘ names and overall life situation are obvious and very cleverly done.

I suspect every mother in every culture at some time or another in history has felt it her personal mission to get her daughters married off to suitable husbands, regardless of how much the daughters want a marriage based on love and with the freedom to remain an independent woman within the relationship. So read this book and see how successful Mrs. Binat is in her hilarious efforts at matchmaking. Will Jena (Jane, in Pride and Prejudice) marry Bungles? Will Alys/ Alice marry Mr. Darsee/Darsy? All will be.revealed in this very satisfying romp .

The author has an exceptional ability to bring her characters to life on the page, from the characters with the smallest, background, roles, to the main characters.

Highly recommended!

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

A modern day take on Pride and Prejudice set in Pakistan. It’s the year 2000 in the novel but the situation is still the same: a mother is trying to marrying off her daughters.

Alys (pronounced like Alice) and Jena are teachers. Sometimes Alys is frustrated to feel that she is only teaching the students until they leave to get married.

I think Alys gives this retelling a great feminist spin. I know P&P was feminist too but it’s interesting to see this modern take. Because it’s harder to picture thus scenario in our current time, it’s harder to understand a mother treating her daughters like they can’t be happy unless they catch a husband.
Mrs Binat is a materialistic but mainly because she thinks the only way her daughters can be ok is if the find rich husbands.
Can you picture your mom actually insisting that a guy will propose to you the second time you see him?

But that’s the cool thing about setting this story in Pakistan. It’s modern day but the rules are different. And if Pakistan is like the author wrote it, it’s incredibly rough to be a single woman there. The Pakistan of this story compares more to Jane Austen’s England than it does to present day America.

So, picture all of that, and then picture a fiesty Alys encouraging women to get an education. Picture her insisting to her mom that she’s happy.

And then of course picture Darsee because this is still a bit of a love story.
It’s a big, modern day, feminist, Pakistani take on P&P. I enjoyed it. I thought there were some slow spots in the story but I enjoyed it over all. I’ve tried to cut back on P&P retellings but I ultimately can’t resist.

Thanks to NetGalley for an early edition ebook of this novel.

Pride and Prejudice translated into the modern day Pakistani culture.Reall a fun read Jane Austen in modern time new traditions love though is love no matter time or place.A really fun read.Thanks#netgalley #randomhouse

I received an arc from Netgalley. I love that the story mimics the theme from Pride and Prejudice but I found myself skimming past all of the details. I did enjoy the whimsical responses and details of the book and will read this author again.

I was really looking forward to this book and was soooo excited when I got an advanced reader's copy of it. I love Pride and Prejudice but am no where near a purist—I'll take any version or sequel I can get my hands on.

However, this one didn't fully deliver for me.

For starters, Lizzy in this version (Alys) felt more like Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You. Feminist with an ultra edge. The whole book she was very much against marriage. That in and of itself obviously isn't bad, especially considering the society she was in (which really is very similar to Jane Austen's day. Women get married or are burdens to their families for the rest of their lives). However, because that was her character, it made the speed at which she fell for the Darcy character (Darsee) not terribly believable. Honestly, I was expecting her to confess to just liking him and she said she full out loved him and that just didn't seem quite in character. I felt like I didn't get to see their relationship develop hardly at all. (I know that's how P&P is, but it just didn't feel right for this character in a more modern setting.)

On a personal preference note, I do like it when the author changes the story a little bit or adds some personal flair when writing a retelling. You may know the story, but it takes an additional turn you weren't necessarily expecting. (Jane of Austin and Bride and Prejudice come immediately to mind.) This one however stayed pretty religiously close to the book in terms of events and the course of the story. Pretty much only locations and names were changed. A gay character and an abortion added. And a party instead of a ball and the whole Lucas (Loocus) family going to visit Charlotte (Sherry) instead of just Dad and a sister, but that's about it.

Overall, I didn't dislike the book, but it didn't leave me satisfied. Looking forward to reading Pride and seeing if that one is more of what I'm looking for in a retelling of this classic tale.

Soniah Kamal’s Unmarriageable is an warm story about sisterhood and friendship, as well as a love letter to Pride and Prejudice. The five Binat sisters live in Dilipabad, a small Pakistani town just across the Indian border from Amritsar (the setting of the Bollywood spinoff Bride and Prejudice. Is that not how everyone learns geography?). A family estrangement has left their branch struggling, unable to live as they used to, so the older girls teach English, while Mrs. Binat schemes about beautification to catch wealthy husbands. Teenage Lady flirts with everyone, Mari is a pedantic Quran reader, and youngest sister Qitty is chubby and forgotten. This has everything we love in P&P, with a distinctly Pakistani style.

Jena and Alys are both over 30, a successful updating of the Bennet sisters’ impoverished gentry background, especially since handsome Bungles is only 25. This is exactly what Bingley sisters and gossipy aunties will turn into a massive mismatch and social disaster, when it’s really a tiny obstacle for a loving marriage. The Binat sisters are English teachers at the local girls’ school, which is respectable if not impressive employment, even if Alys keeps getting scolded for running her mouth in class and leading her students to question their roles as wives-to-be.

Alys and her friends have discussions about literature in translation and colonialism. (So yes, I immediately requested all the books that Alys buys in Lahore from my library. Naturally.) There are also some comments on the joys of rereading Pride and Prejudice, which make this feel like a real love letter to Jane Austen, and Unmarriageable characters discuss their favorite Austen characters and Jane’s view of marriage. I particularly enjoyed when Annie, a chronically ill former model with a secret Nigerian boyfriend, talks about how mild and silent Anne de Burgh is. But, if you’ve read P&P, though, how do you trust a Jeorgeullah Wickaam? Alys, don’t be distracted by a handsome face!

The question of marriage and finances is a central part of Austen’s work, but I’m not sure how well the impoverished-family works as a plot device or character background right now. Current American morality sees poverty as a temporary setback to be overcome with hard work, and also considers laziness is an unforgivable personality failing. So, a poor young woman is no longer an unfortunate victim of circumstance, but a lazy taker. BOOTSTRAPS, BENNETS! Ugh. I kind of hate everything right now, and I double hate that our miserable news cycle leaks into my fiction reading.

Sherry Looclus, Alys’ coworker and friend, is even older and even more worried about money than the Binat girls. (OH! And Sir Lucas becomes Haji Looclus, a clever reimagining which took me a while to get. I just figured Haji was his first name, I didn’t realize he’d claimed the title of a Muslim who’s completed the Mecca pilgrimage.) Although it’s easy to see Mr. Collins as a ridiculous figure, we can also see how happy Sherry is to get out of her parents’ house (to fly the pigeon coop, maybe?), to mother her lovely step-children, and to have enough money that she can quit the girls’ school and work on her own projects. Of course she doesn’t have a love match, and Kaleen is still no Darsee, but you can see a partnership here.

Unmarriageable was such a great story that I forced myself to slow down reading it. I loved the revisions of familiar characters in a new setting. This novel is full of Pakistani flavor, but it’s still quite accessible to anyone with a gossipy auntie or a handsome crush.

As a fan of the Pride & Prejudice novel, I felt this was a decent Pakistani retelling. However, it felt more like a direct copy playing to PP with all the references to the original and explaining the original. Those of us who are fans already know it so we don’t need the reminders. It would have been better to just aim to be a true retelling.

I enjoy learning new cultures and enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the author. I am not familiar with Muslim-Pakistani culture so there were some items I struggled with namely how cruel Mrs. Binat and most of the daughters were to each other and others. The same characters from the original PP were cruel/harsh but this novel took it to a new level. Perhaps that is the culture but I did not like it at all.

It is never made clear why the author chose to set the novel in 2000 & 2001 either. Alys’s opinions about many things seemed to be better suited to topics that are hot button issues today, even if they were years ago as well.

The biggest problem for me was that I did not like Alys at all. Lizzie Bennett is an iconic character and Alys could not fill those shoes. Most of the time I did not like Alys at all and found her self-righteous and annoying.

Novel provided for free by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW

I love retellings of Pride and Prejudice, and Kamal's retelling is one set in modern-day Pakistan. The character development is wonderful in this book, and it is a winning and imaginative retelling of a beloved classic.

AUTHOR

Soniah Kamal is an award winning essayist and fiction writer. Her debut novel, An Isolated Incident, was a finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction and the KLF French Fiction Prize. Her TEDx talk, “Redreaming Your Dream,” is about regrets and second chances. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Catapult,The Normal School, The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Missing Slate, BuzzFeed, The James Dickey Review, Scroll.in and Literary Hub.She is a literacy ambassador for the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation.

I really loved this adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. While many retellings have simply moved the tale to modern times, the new location and not-quite-modern time period add layers that work really well with this story, keeping similar societal rules in place (like chaperones and the need for marriage) without forcing them to work in the story. At times I did feel that the references to P&P were too heavy-handed because many people know the story, but they also don't need to know the story to enjoy this one.

Soniah Kamal has created a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, set in early-21st-century Pakistan, where parents are still very much concerned about pairing off their children to eligible mates. I enjoyed all of the parallels to Austen's England, with the addition of different cultural traditions and deliciously-described Pakistani food. I also liked how the names of Austen's characters have been translated into Pakistani equivalents: Elizabeth Bennet becomes Alysba Binat, etc.

I did think it was at times a bit too literal of an interpretation, following the original beat-for-beat without a lot of change; I think it would have been better if it had strayed a bit more from its source material.

There was far too much fatphobia in this for me to continue reading. Very disappointing, because it started out great. I just don't need to read book in which fat is equated to ugly and unmarriagable or whatever. Boo.

Kamal has done the amazing job of translating Jane Austin into Pakistani culture flawlessly. Alys Binat plays the classical role of Elizabeth Bennett flowing into a colorful cast of characters mimicking those of their Austen counterparts with a Pakistani flair.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this retelling. I appreciated the wit and humor that Kamal uses as well as the cultural reflections that tie the stories together in ways that I couldn't have imagined otherwise.

This was a fun read and I think that any Austen lover, especially those that appreciate Pride and Prejudice, would enjoy reading this title as well.

I love Jane Austen book retellings especially Pride and Prejudice and this one is very good because it is told thought different culture and time but in the end similar results. My only dislike is that's it's too much like Pride and Prejudice.