The Matchmaker's List is a delightful read! The flashbacks build suspense. And the main character is likable. I was rooting for her the whole time.

Raina Anand turns twenty nine and contemplates her future. After her mother's wild youth leaving her to be raised by her mother Raina is the "good" granddaughter to her grandmother, she's got the good job and after a devastating heartbreak is willing to let her grandmother matchmake for her. I really enjoyed this book. It gave great insight into the Indian community , the tradition of the old mixed with the progress of the new. I loved Nani Raina's grandmother, she was so loving and open minded which if anyone knows anything about Indian grannies is in quite short supply not the loving part but the open minded bit. Raina's search for love is sometimes amusing, sometimes interesting, sometimes heartbreaking and through it all it's about a woman coming to terms with herself and her community.

Raina Anand is your typical nearly 30 metropolitan business woman. She works too many hours, drinks too much, still has feelings for her toxic ex and all of her friends are starting to settle down. Add to all of her modern issues the fact that she comes from a traditional Indian home. Raina's grandmother raised her to respect her upbringing which means she wants her married in a traditional wedding to a doctor with two children before her eggs are hard-boiled. Let's just say time is running out.

While Raina works her way through the list of eligible Indian bachelor's her grandmother has made, she meets Asher, a former nomad/high school teacher. Through series of events they become frenemies and then friends and maybe something more if Raina doesn't ruin it all first. Believe me, she tries to ruin it.

I enjoyed this modern story of self-discovery, bridging the gap between cultures, and yes, even love.

I told myself I was going to make myself finish this book tonight. I lost that battle.

This book had so much potential! It just ended up being soooo boring. The story was a almost 30 year old woman had promised her Nani that if she wasn't married by thirty that she would let her help her "find a mate"..and it could have worked. Nani's character sorta tried to bridge the gap of being a modern woman with her Indian heritage. Her- I tried to like. I just felt that enough time was not given to flesh out her character. Bummer

Then the main character Raina..she just got on my dang nerves. At the point where I gave up the ghost on the book she was back to mooning over the guy that dumped her years ago. He refused to meet her family and this girl was old school with her Nani and we were supposed to buy that? Not. Plus, he treated her like poo but of course that was the guy of her dreams. He lurrrrvvved her. *gag*

She reads as so immature for a almost thirty year old woman. I went into this book wanting a rom-com that touched on some subjects that haven't been done to death..such as arranged marriages. I didn't get that.

My head hurts.



Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review

A good book. I was rooting for Raina even when I felt she wasn’t rooting for herself. I’m really happy with the way things worked out!

This book is amazing by making me not hate the main character no matter how stupid she becomes in the middle part. Altogether the book is about a second generation Indian-Canadian trying to reconcile who she is by the influences of her Indian grandma and her Indian-Canadian mother who rebelled heavily against the grandma. Very interesting and helped me continue reading when Raina decides to let her grandma think she's gay. That was painful but at least, as opposed to most woman's fiction, this was not portrayed as cute but heavily messed up and wrong of her.

Sonya Lalli's The Matchmaker's List was a refreshing surprise. I read it on a whim, mostly because it was compared to The Wedding Date, which hit a tender part of my heart I didn't even know existed. The initial conceit is that the narrator, Raina, while still heartbroken over an ex, has to manage her grandmother's expectation that she settle down and marry a nice Indian boy sooner rather than later. I was expecting it to be a series of charmingly terrible bad dates that would end in a Happily Ever After with both Raina and her Nani perfectly content. What I got was so much more complicated. The Matchmaker's List takes on generational trauma, complicated female friendships, tradition, sexuality, cultural identity, and the murky line between what we want and what we have been told to want. But, there are still charmingly bad dates.

I recommend it for people who love a good breezy read about a woman looking for love, but want something a little more nuanced than your traditionally structured romance.