i really enjoyed reading this book, the characters were great and I enjoyed getting to know them. The plot was really well done and was a beautiful journey.

Moving from India to a quiet English village means a struggle for Anu to fit in with the other mothers and women at her child's school. Her struggle for acceptance and also for her own self truths make this an excellent read.

This is probably not a book I would have picked up in a bookstore, but I am challenging myself to read some different topics and genres, so I thought I would give this a go.
Anu is a thirty-something Indian mother who is struggling to fit in in her new life full of rich and stylish moms.
Based on the fact that Anu is Indian, I really thought that the author was going to incorporate the struggle of being Indian in a different society more however, the way the book is written, being of a different cultural background has nothing to do with the way Anu feels.
I was a bit let down by this because Anu could have been Italian, African or Russian and it would have made no difference. Yes, we see some glimpse into Indian culture, but I feel like it should have been incorporated more.
Anu's struggles are the struggles of any woman who doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere and is trying to find her place in the world.
The first two parts of the book paint Anu as quite superficial and someone who cares too much about what other people think, which would have been fine if she was in her 20s, but not in her 30s, married with a child.

I also found the chapters a bit erratic, one moment Anu was doing something with someone and the next she was already with someone else, leaving the reader wanting to know how the first episode ended.

I really wanted to love this book but unfortunately it has disappointed me.

Having read Poornima Manco's novella The Intimacy of Loss and short stories; Parvathy's Well and Damage, I was really pleased to read her debut novel, A Quiet Dissonance.

I found the story to be very real. After Anu and her family move to a village, her daughter Neha starts primary school. Anu enters the world of playground politics and Mummy clubs - which Manco depicts perfectly. Being the only woman of colour and being from a different cultural background, Anu is riddled with personal insecurites. She hates being the outsider and longs to be accepted.

Anu aims to please and along the way, she loses her true self. This book takes us on a seven year journey in which Anu has highs and lows. Her husband Ravi and neighbour Susan both prove to be the voice of reason. The slight downside I found was that there was no explanation as to why the whole Jemima/Julie club suddenly distance themselves from Anu.

Rating: 3.5 stars

*"It is a strange thing to go through life as an outsider."* Anu is an Indian woman trying very hard to fit in, but she will very soon realise that not everyone is very welcoming in the small English village where she lives.

With the search for belonging, the whole novel felt very coming-of-age, but in an adult setting. She didn't have very exclusively adult problems; more like general issues that everyone can struggle with, but seen from an adult perspective. That's a good thing because it was relatable, but also weird at times because her problems reminded me so much of high school drama (or maybe I'm scared that my future as an adult and maybe a parent can bring all this trouble back).

There was also a lot of it on whether she didn't feel like she fit in because of being Indian and feeling alienated from everything here or because of something more personal, and I loved seeing how she put all parts of her together.

There's a scene when Neha, Anu's daughter, tries to comfort her as she's crying, and Anu thinks that it's not the same as what her child can go through, because adults aren't that forgiving. There's a lot of comparisons about how children deal with issues compared to how adults do, facing the same problems at times. So it's a book about belonging, about getting to know what really matters, about friends and about the importance of family.

The book was very well done, depicting what she felt about her culture and how that fit in her persona and who she was trying to become. It felt very relatable, even if I'm not thirty-five and married with a child, so it was easy to keep reading because I could see myself in her story.

I really liked Anu's husband, Ravi. At the beginning I thought he was brushing things off as too simple, but he paid a lot of attention and he loves Anu and cares a lot, and his outside perspective is actually what she needs in plenty of moments. His advice and support felt really wholesome.

*"Why couldn't she be like the others - able to take or leave relationships? Able to accept people at face value and not delve too deep into their motivations? Was her intensity, her commitment, a turnoff?"* I felt very called out here.

At moments I really saw myself in her, but then I started feeling like it was the same thing over and over again, and that she was spiralling and I didn't know how she could ever make it out unless people started being kind all of a sudden. Anu, like practically everyone, pushes away the people who actually tell her the truth, tell her things unfiltered, because she wants to feel good about herself and craves the belonging, but sometimes you just have to sort your priorities.

The only flaw I can pinpoint is how at some point in the story, though, it felt repetitive a bit, like she was stretching out the issue and the same stuff happened in every environment.

So overall, it was a good story of belonging, clashing cultures, and being able to become aware of the things that really matter, and Anu's arc was beautiful to read. I enjoyed Poornima Manco's writing very much, and I loved the emotional take on it all.

Stop looking for external validation!

It's a slow read where nothing much is happening. I couldn't relate to Anu in her insatiable desire to belong to an in-group neglecting the women who wanted to be her friends. It sure isn't easy to fit in in a new country, but it's never a good idea to look only at what you're missing instead of looking at what you've got.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
A story of a mother, an immigrant, trying to find her place in the world.
There were some beautifully crafted passages in this book and it brought me back to the elementary school Mom drama the is definitely real!
Beautiful cover.

I don't have kids and this book made me realise that it's probably a good thing that I don't. That's not to say I have anything against little people but I don't think I could have handled the 'mean girls' at the school gates. This is a very modern tale of ghosting and gaslighting amongst the mumocracy. It's horrible to see that bullying and ganging up doesn't stop when the girls leave school.

Anu and Ravi have moved from India to a village not too far from London and Anu struggles to fit in. She observes - and it struck me quite deeply - that somebody moving to England from India today has very little in common with those who moved here back in the 50s, 60s, or even later. The India that she and Ravi left behind is a completely different country from the one left behind by earlier waves of immigration. She doesn't fit in with the historic immigrant community and the mums at the school are a mercurial bunch, changing their favour and fashion frequently. At first, she has no friends, then a group pick her up and include her, only to drop her again without explanation.

I didn't have problems fitting in at school - and I probably wasn't the type of kid to care too much - but as a mum, Anu really suffers for being pushed aside and left out. Ravi has his work colleagues and doesn't really 'get' why she's so upset. She also has a problem that her mother was a pretty dreadful woman who gave her no attention and very little love. It's not really as if she has any kind of role model.

I really enjoyed this book even though very little actually happened. I sympathised deeply with Anu and her loneliness and was happy when she found another way by which to define her worth. I don't know how much of this was autobiographical, but if Poornima Manco suffered this kind of unkindness, I hope she's found her worth and no longer needs to define herself by the opinion of others. And if I were a mum and she were her character, she'd be welcome round at my house for coffee and a chat any time.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for access to this lovely book.

A pleasant read about an Indian woman trying her hardest to belong within a community of white women in an English suburb. Apart from the usual social navigations, nothing particularly interesting happens.

The topics of this book are contemporary and important, racism, minority, different cultures, acceptance, and belonging.
The author tries to develop these topics through Anu and her family, husband Ravi, and daughter Neha. Since they live for the longest time in England where they are still considered too Indian, they do not count as really Indian anymore in India as they are too westernized. Anu, being an artist, feels this non-belonging more than others and struggles. So far so good, but the characters fall short; Anu is too contradictory and gets annoying, her husband Ravi is lacking any depth, and the English school mothers are very cliche. It was a promising book which for me did not fully deliver.

I try and read books by authors from a similar background as myself as I feel there is a massive gap in the market for this. This book is written by a brown woman about a brown woman who is the same age as me but this lady (Anu) has a husband and a child.

The book focuses on Anu and her life in England, where she tries to balance fitting in with the mums at the school where her daughter Neha goes, her mum, her overbearing cousin and her relationship with her husband.

I really liked this book, it is split into three parts and follows Anu going through her day to day life, coping with a mother who was always distant, a daughter in primary school and having to negotiate her friendship groups.

I have been reading a lot of thrillers recently and kept expecting a twist but once I got it into my head that this book would not have a twist, it was a very enjoyable read.

The characters are well written, I like the additions of Punjabi/Hindi works in the book and how it welded the western aspect of life with the eastern aspect of life that brown people have to weld together.

I also liked how Anu questioned herself on certain things that the women at school did, wondering if she had missed things because she was not familiar with this culture or because the women were just being bitches. We have all been in places where we are made to feel as if we are not good enough for certain things and these encounters have left us wondering what is wrong with us.

At times, I found myself not liking Anu's husband but as the story progressed, I could see why he was behaving the way he was.

This book resonates with me a lot in certain parts. I did find one mistake in it, though...at the end of one of the chapters, I believe it is Chapter 14 (the last chapter in Part 2), the author confuses Anu and Neha and the text states that Neha was doing X when it should say that Anu was doing X.

My second minor complaint about it is the incorrect usage of places. I feel that if you are using an actual place then you should get the geography correct, as otherwise, you could just make it up. The author refers to Southall but also calls a road "King's Street" when it is actually "King Street".

I would definitely recommend this book, I enjoyed reading it.

“A Quiet Dissonance” follows the story of Anu and her family as they straddle two worlds. Originally from India, Anu and her husband, Ravi, move to a small town in England. Anu desperately tries to fit in with the other school mums, while still retaining her culture and identity as an artist. There were many ups and downs throughout this novel (I don’t want to give anything away!), some unique to an immigrant’s experience, while others were relatable to all circumstances. Anu faces friction from family members, friends; seeks acceptance from those around her; and deals with loss of self, culture, and family. Manco’s writing is superb and draws the reader right in. We feel Anu’s confusion and her agony as she navigates the social circles of school mums, dance mums, and neighbors.

I truly enjoyed reading this novel. It flowed beautifully, and while there were a lot of characters, they were fairly easy to remember. So many parts of this book hit home to me, having relocated a few times in my life, trying hard to make new friends, navigating a new culture. Manco nailed human nature in this book—sometimes it was painful how true she wrote her characters. There’s so much heart and depth to this one. I find myself still processing it and all of the layers that were subtly put in.

This novel is an important one for our times especially. As a woman, it’s hard to choose “what’s good and right for me-my family, my work” and to find “a deeper happiness…that cannot be corrupted from the outside”. There’s so much pressure to be all put together, to have kids who are well rounded, and the list goes on. Manco demonstrates throughout her novel what is important to Anu and causes the reader to reflect on their own priorities and if they are in the right order.

I loved the cover, the writing, and the characters! I loved Noni and Cathy. There were a few bits in the middle with the school mums that I felt could have been shortened, but other than that, the pacing was great. A couple times Neha’s name was substituted for Anu’s.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC.