Around the time I got married, I found myself drawn to books about Indian women. As we traveled through India, meeting my family and showing Clinton and his parents the city and monuments, I spent a decent amount of time in the backseat of a car. I was grateful for the downtime and happy to immerse myself in tales of women of my culture. As I had just had my wedding, Mansi Choksi’s The Newlyweds gave me company.

The Newlyweds may follow three couples of diverse backgrounds, but through these stories, it represents thousands of couples in India. Their stories may be different in many ways from my upbringing and yet, as it happens when you grow up somewhere, you know certain things to be true. You know the expectations, assumptions and judgements that exist in society.

Leaving home for someone who the family will not approve of is a huge step. My imagination would never be able to do it justice. Through the stories of couples in The Newlyweds, I could follow them on their journey and see what that looked like.

This book has a big cast of characters. Rather than being three separate stories, I liked that the book is organized in three parts where we meet the couples at different times in their relationships. It makes it easier to contrast the role that their families and society at large played in the situations. This is a well researched book with a brutally honest look at hope and despair. Two people fall in love and dream about forever being together. Some people pretend to sell these dreams. Sometimes, the couples realize that the very family they thought they had to leave is the one that will support them and take on all the hate of the community for them. Sometimes, they learn that their parents just secretly want them to go back to ‘normal’. There is so much pain and suffering but there is also love, new life and getting to know oneself.

Mansi beautifully depicts many heart wrenching moments of the drama of life including running away in the dead of night, being provided a shelter, finding a one room apartment to live in for the time being, somehow making ends meet and finding solace in prayer and love. There is violence in these pages, family members hurt instead of the one who made the ‘mistake’, businesses destroyed, community bonds broken. I am not kidding. The Newlyweds is an eye-opening book. These are real people who Mansi met and followed for years. Head to my blog to read a more detailed review of the book, see some of my wedding photos and read an interview with the author!

Many thanks to the publisher for providing me a review copy of this book for an honest review.

Finished reading this and the way it reports, relays, and reveals the lives of three Indian couples as they choose a love that's highly forbidden within the country's socio-political frame, makes it a vivid non-fiction that reads like a candid novel.

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book follows three couples as they get married out of love instead of following the arranged marriage route. This is also a nonfiction, so these accounts are based in reality.

I was not able to finish this book, though, I do believe that this book would be great for people who are avid nonfiction readers. I really enjoyed the writing style of this book and I did find the journeys to be very interesting. However, the cast of people I found were not completely likable, and because of that it was hard for me to be as invested in the book. As a South Asian reviewer, I love seeing nonfiction stories like this being published. As a reader who rarely picks up nonfiction, I think that this would be a great read for others who also rarely pick up works like this because it does not feel like nonfiction at all. I really learned a lot from this book and will probably pick up more nonfiction in the future because of this book and experience.

This was an interesting read about 3 different couple scenarios. All the best to the author.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

One of my favorite reads of the year. I reviewed it for The Star Tribune.

"Of India’s 1.4 billion people, less than 5% live in the most developed, most “modern” cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. The rest of the population resides in rural and semi-rural areas, and “still-developing” cities. In “The Newlyweds,” journalist Mansi Choksi focuses on the lives and loves in this 95% of the country where ancient hierarchies, traditions and belief systems persist alongside the growing ubiquity of mobile phones and social media.

Over half a decade, Choksi follows three couples who oppose their community-enforced systems of caste, religion and heteronormativity to be with their chosen partners. They endanger not only their own lives but also those of their families. In the end, some of these family members also become their worst enemies.

[...]

Choksi’s narrative structure braids the three couple strands cleverly so that, as the stakes keep rising, the tension escalates through cinematic jumps and cuts. Her scenes are alive with singular details, vivid language, and crisp dialogue. The net effect is that we become so vested in the lives of these six people — and the collateral damage they leave in their wake — that they linger with us long after reading. This very quality might leave a reader feeling like the stories end too soon or without satisfying resolutions. But, as she writes in her introduction, her aim was to discover whether love could endure with dignity if it became tainted with shame.
And the learning she presents throughout is that, though love is powerful, when it comes at great cost, it turns into a need for acceptance. “The process of reconciliation with our choices can be both beautiful and terrible. ... Growing can look a lot like suffering and it happens when our expectations and reality collide."

Prime Minister Modi has talked often about India’s unique 3D advantage: democracy, demography, and demand. With the grim journeys of these three young, aspiring couples, Choksi reminds us of the ever-growing F of Hindu fundamentalism severely handicapping those three Ds.”

✨✨ The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India ✨✨

📅: August 30!

Mansi Choksi’s brilliant work of investigative journalism paints a rich, tapestry of complex and nuanced socio-political culture that shapes contemporary romance and marriages today of everyday ordinary people who are often forgotten in the mainstream.

Neetu and Davinder: Being from the same gotra/caste, we follow their story as they elope from their village in Haryana where the customs consider them siblings. Their story unfolds as they seek protection from Love Commandos, an organization that prides itself for protecting couples and is popularized by the talk show led by Aamir Khan called Satyamev Jayate. While their story takes a different turn, their narrative highlights honor killings in contemporary India.

Arif and Monika Ingle: A Muslim and Hindu couple, Arif and Monika’s story calls attention to Love Jihad, a recent phenomenon in which Muslim men are accused of impregnating Hindu women. “In India there are two sets of crimes: real and imaginary…imaginary crimes…were violations of the invisible lines of traditions that were meted out with sentences of shame and guilt…” is what perhaps best defines not this but all 3 of the narratives.

Preethi and Reshma: Their story explores contemporary LGBTQ marriages in India. By sharing their story, Choksi contextualizes how Section 377, the colonial era law that criminalizes homosexuality, and explores its impact on Preethi and Reshma’s relationship.

QQOTD ⁉️: What is a powerful or memorable fiction or non fiction marriage narrative that you have come across?

#MansiChoksi #TheNewlyweds#bookstagram #instabook #book-photography #bookporn #igbooks #ilovereading #bookhaul #bookhoarder #bookaddiction #bookstoread #whattoread #fortheloveofbooks #bookblogging

This non-fiction book was a really interesting look into marriage in modern India. I really enjoyed the mix of the 3 couples and their different stories. I appreciated the facts regarding marriage laws as well. very enjoyable and nice to read about another country's approach to marriage.

The setting of this book goes back and forth between Monika and her sister. Monika is trying to decide between her family values and the world around her. It’s a very involved day-to-day story.

The NEWLYWEDS - REVIEW
As a South Asian #bookblogger with ancestry from India I knew I had to read this book.
#thenewleywedsrearrangingmarriageinmodernindia by @mansi_choksi and did not disappoint!

This book is really unique as it is a non-fiction read written as a literary story. Choksi takes readers through the reality of marriage in India. We see intimate details and follow 3 couples- a lesbian couple, an intercaste couple and a Muslim/Hindu couple. It’s so sweet to see photos of the couples within the book as well.

As the reader I felt totally engrossed in the life of the couples and their family reactions to their relationships. Choksi explores the legal and state laws in relation to marriage and honour killings in India and then juxtaposes this with the reality of the lived experiences of couples. Overall I give this book 4.5/5 🌟! Once I started this book. I could not put it down.

Thank you @atriabooks and @netgalley for my #advancedreaderscopy . Be sure to check out this book in the Fall!