What an enjoyable version of Pride and Prejudice. The Binat family were a mixture of personalities. Mrs. Binat has one mission and it is to see her five daughters married to rich eligible men and she is not subtle about it. Jena is kind and generous, Alys is fearless and outspoken, Qitty is an artist, and holds her head up no matter that her sister Lady always puts her down due to Qitty’s weight. Mari is religious and wants to make sure everyone goes to heaven and Lady who just wants to have a good time. Of all the sisters, I liked Alys the most. She cared about her family and was very protective yet she had her blinders on about certain things and people. Sisters Sammy and Hammy were so irritating. I think fans of the Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice will enjoy this version set in Pakistan. I found it an interesting take on the original story with lots of laughter and touching moments.

I am not much for modern retellings of Pride and Prejudice but I enjoyed this one. It was witty and opened a new perspective, makes you realize that there are Mr. Darcy's all over the world.

I have heard it said often that life is to short for a book that you don’t like. Therefore, life is too short for this book. I really did try, but it was just so slow. Combine that with crude language and I’m just not interested.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Just one thing about this retelling of Pride & Prejudice kept taking me out of it—it's ridiculous that it takes place in a world where Pride & Prejudice not only exists, but the main character is extremely familiar with it. If your life starts imitating a favorite book in every detail, down to the <em>names of the people you know</em>, you'd think you might notice!

I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.

The high-starred reviews on this one got me really excited. I'm a sucker for Austen, and I know P&P like the back of my hand. Which made this... disappointing. Here's the thing. It was a really good book. I enjoyed the feminism and the characters' forward-thinking opinions (well, some of them anyway). I loved the writing style, and I even like how Kamal really explored Alys' change of heart regarding Darsee, instead of leaving it to feel like she was wowed by his awesome house.

But despite all of that, I could *not* get past the fact that this was a literal retelling of the story I know and love, complete with similar-sounding character names and some even identical situations. My biggest problem is not that it was just a retelling, but that it was a retelling that CONSTANTLY referenced P&P and Austen, and yet the main character did not seem to realize she was freaking LIVING P&P! She talks about it all the time, but never once thinks, "Hm, I feel like I know how this is going to end because my life and everyone in it is exactly like this book I'm obsessed with..."

This would have been a four- or even five-starred review if the book didn't reference Austen at all. It was so amazingly similar that every time Austen was mentioned it threw me out of the story and back into the original. And in that respect, the Bollywood movie Bride and Prejudice did it much better. Yes, it was super cheesy. But there was no Austen reference, so I wasn't sitting there wondering why all the characters were so damn dense about it. (Plus, we got the Mr. Collins character and his "No Life Without Wife" hand gestures, and the ridiculous song, which are arguably the best things about that movie. So there's that.)

That said, if none of what I said above bothers you (and apparently it didn't bother a bunch of other P&P fans, so to each his/her own), then by all means, read and enjoy. I liked it, but because it constantly referenced its primary source, I couldn't love it.

This is a modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice set in Pakistan. It follows the same basics as the original story, with a few modern twists. The setting and culture make this especially fun. The main character, Alys, teaches literature at a local girls' school, trying to inspire the girls to think critically and make their own life choices instead of blindly doing what is expected of them, basically getting married and dropping out of school. I like these re-tellings. I thought this one was especially cute. If this is your thing, I definitely recommend this one.

I love Pride & Prejudice retellings. I also love all things Indian. I realize this is Pakistan, and that's probably incorrect of me to say. But I've been obsessed with foods from those countries lately and hearing about them in this book made me love them all the more. Plus, I went to an Indian wedding celebration in May that had a very similar set up to the one in this book, which made me miss that as well. Such a great retelling!

Unmarriageable is a retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that takes place in modern day Pakistan.

There were many things that I enjoyed about this novel. The author did a really nice job recreating the story and modern day Pakistan was the perfect back drop for it due to the apparent culture of raising girls to be wives and mothers while frowning upon a woman who desires independence and a career. The Binat sisters - Jena, Alys, Qitty, Mari, and Lady - had very distinct and individual personalities. Eccentric characters like Farhat Kaleen (or as Lady liked to call him, Fart Bhai), and the always dramatic, Pinkie Binat made this novel quite entertaining.

Unfortunately, the chemistry between Alys and Darsee was really lacking. There should have been chemistry stemming from the denial and then the gradual recognition of mutual attraction. The reader should be antsy with anticipation, waiting for Alys and Darsee to show up together in any given scene, and racing through pages, unable to wait until they finally get together. It just wasn’t there.

I enjoyed this cute and entertaining novel. ARC was provided by NetGalley and Ballantine Books.

Loved this book. A "Pride and Prejudice" for another generation, another country. Easy, quick, enjoyable read. I gave it 4 stars and from me, that's high praise.

For me this was a very interesting look at a Pakistani family's dynamics and interpersonal relationships. I know very little about the Pakistani culture so it was intriguing to me. I found it was easier to read when I wasn't so worried about making the comparisons between the original Pride & Prejudice and this retelling. I just let myself read and enjoy the story.

This book is a cute homage to Jane Austen's <i>Pride & Prejudice</i> with Pakistani flair.

If you're looking for an original work of fiction, this is not it. It's a reworking of <i>Pride & Prejudice</i> set in modern Pakistan. It is not merely inspired by Austen's work, but a version that closely mirrors the characters, events, and structure of the original. Kamal has replaced the characters with Pakistani characters whose names are carefully chosen so that a reader familiar with <i>Pride & Prejudice</i> will know exactly who they mirror in the original. For example, Mr. Bingley becomes Mr. Bingla, Kitty is Qitty, Jane is Jena, and so on. Add a dusting of beautiful Pakistani clothing and you have this book.

Just saying it's a homage doesn't mean that the author hasn't found her own way to make her mark on it, however. While clearly mirroring <i>Pride & Prejudice</i>, she's still found a way to update it for modern Pakistani issues, such as rising religious fundamentalism, the role of women and education in society, etc. For readers with no knowledge of Pakistan, it's an accessible way to learn more about the country and its cultures.

Recommended for fans of Jane Austen and anyone wanting some light reading with more diversity than what's usually on offer from publishers.

We definitely need more adaptations like this!
amazing take on pride and prejudice, and also I feel like it fills in the what if's from Jane Austen's version.
I need more by this author...write faster! Lol

We can all agree that it is rare for a reboot to rival the original. But in this world, where #MeToo and #WeNeedDiverseBooks live, I have found you a single novel that can be a gateway drug to fine literature, world literature, and women's literature.
Unmarriageable is indeed "Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan." But more importantly, it is the version of Pride and Prejudice modern students NEED to read. While a modern Westerner can intellectually understand the dilemma of Elizabeth Bennet in 19th century Regency Britain, the predicament of her and her sisters is somewhat removed emotionally for us. Women's lives got better. Women became able to inherit and work and even marry for love. Having this tale play out in modern day Pakistan adds a level of reality and urgency to the story that is hard to experience from the original with our perfect historical hindsight.
Simply put, Unmarriageable has legs because so many of the original norms Austen wrote about are still at work in the world today. We read stories about honor killings, forced and arranged marriages, preference of boys to girls, shooting of girls going to school from all over the globe (not just South Asia). And in this novel, we see the seeds of how small micro-aggressions lay the ground work for macro-aggressions against the disenfranchised.
Because Unmarriageable is able to step just a bit beyond Austen's exposure of the misogyny of the day, I hope and encourage educators to read it and consider adding it into your ELA curriculum. Unmarriageable not only presents the plight of women, especially "older" unmarried women, but also touches upon the struggles of gay men, interracial couples, unwed pregnant women, plus sized women, and class biases. And while the setting is Pakistan, many of these biases hit disturbingly close to the mark in Western society too. This book will also give educators an opportunity to teach about Partition, colonial occupation, India-Pakistan relations, Islam, the importance of education to women. And it may help some students realize how little they know about this important, populous and critical area of the world.
So...
Dear ELA Teachers Everywhere,

Please put down your copy of Pride and Prejudice. Just stick in that drawer next to you. Now open your computer and place an order for a class set of Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal (due out January 2019). Your Jane Austen discussions are about to get wild.

#Unmarriageable #NetGalley @Soniah Kamal

This was an enjoyable take on Pride and Prejudice. The storyline is close to Jane Austen’s classic book and will be very familiar to fans, but the interesting twist is that the setting is modern Pakistan. While familiar, the characters and plot seem fresh. I found it particularly impressive how natural the Pride and Prejudice plot translated to the modern Pakistan setting. This was a fun way to be immersed in Pakistani culture.

I loved this book. It did follow Jane Austin , but put it in the perspective of young Pakistanian women. I found Unmarrigeable to be a really charming story of relationships and finding one’s way. I read ian Arc of this book courtesy of Netgalley and the publisher. I highly recommend it. It was entertaining and sweet.

I really wanted to rate this book higher as I liked the book Pride and Prejudice but felt this book fell short. The character development was good but I did not like the way the family treated each other. To say one is heavy and won’t get a good husband was not something I enjoyed. Thanks to Net Galley for allowing me to read and rate this book,

Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan! I loved this contemporary re-telling. It stays quite faithful to the original, but the change of setting gives it a whole new feel. Alys is a wonderful new version of Lizzie- just as fierce and intelligent.

A clever rendition of Pride and Prejudice in modern day Pakistan. For those who can never get enough of Pride and Prejudice you'll love it. For those who hated Pride and Prejudice you'll hate it! For those like me, who liked it and have never read another retelling of the story, you'll enjoy it. It is a fast read and although you already know the ending it is still fun and even a bit suspenseful to see how the pieces come together, to get us to where we know it will be, by the end of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an early release of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I liked the concept here, but felt like it stuck too close to the original text. I mean, real readers of P&P will be able to figure out each character in the book and who they correspond to. We don't need to be told through "clever" renaming: Looclus for Lucas, Kaleen for Collins, Darsee and Bungles (Bingley). By the end I was mostly annoyed at the way she renamed instead of letting the reader be smart enough to figure it out.

BUT, all that being said, I love the way that Indian culture fits so well with the P&P storyline and thought it was well done overall.

I received an uncorrected proof of "Unmarriageable: Pride & Prejudice in Pakistan" by Soniah Kamal, a retelling of Jane Austen's classic novel, “Pride & Prejudice.” I enjoyed Kamal’s re-imagining of the characters and plot and found myself searching online for everything from locations, clothing, food, and literature.
The story begins in December 2000 in the classroom of Alysba Binat (think Elizabeth Bennet), a teacher for the upper grades, where she is having students rewrite the opening line of Austen's novel: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Alys tries in her own way to speak into the lives of these young women at the British School Group. She doesn’t want them to fall into the trap of a patriarchal system, thinking that their only future is to marry young and have children, but instead finish school and go to university. Jenazba Binat (Jane) teaches the middle grades, and we are introduced to the rest of the Binat girls on the way home from School: Marizba (Mary); Qittyra (Kitty); and Lady (Lydia).
Unlike Austen's novel, we are given the back story on the Binat family where they went from riches to rags following a betrayal by Barkat Binat's brother, Goga, and his wife/cousin, Tajwer (Tinkle) Binat. They can only afford a ruin in front of a graveyard in Dilipadad. The graveyard is where Alys meets Sherry Looclus (Charlotte Lucas), who here is a smoker and about 10 years older than her.
The Binats are invited to the Nadir Sheh and Fiede Fecker wedding – very much a ball from a mehndi and nikah ceremony to later walima. It's there that Jena and Alys meet Fahad Bingla, nicknamed Bungles; and Valentine Darsee. Jena is invited to a charity polo match in Lahore where they stay with their aunt and uncle nearby. And here Jena turns her ankle and Bungles carries her out of the match like Marianne in Sense & Sensibility. Alys shows up sweating to beat the band after a walk, reminiscent of Elizabeth’s trip to see Jane at Netherfield when she became ill. Where Austen’s Elizabeth is a reader, Kawal’s Alys is more of a professor of literature. I’m thinking that the book needs a section marked “Alysba’s reading list” because of all the titles included. (I added “Sunlight on a Broken Column” by Attia Hosain to my Goodreads bookshelf.) It is in the clinic with Jena that Alys has a great conversation with Valentine Darsee who says to her:

Darsee: “We’ve been forced to seek ourselves in the literature of others for too long.” Alys: “But reading widely can lead to an appreciation of the universalities across cultures.”

Speaking of different cultures, as a predominantly English reader, I appreciated Kawal’s brief translations after (I believe) Urdu sentences or words to English. I very much enjoyed looking up details from locations in Pakistan to the details about the three wedding ceremonies. I enjoyed looking up the clothing in this novel like when Pinkie Binat is getting the girls ready in saris, gharanas, chararas, peshwas, dupattas and shalwar kurtas. My food knowledge was stretched and I thought how much the novel is a foodie paradise. I may have to order the foods that were at these events from beef biryani, seekh kebabs, tikkas, naan, gulab yamun, firni, samosas, and kulfi ice cream. I love chai tea so the fact that this was offered throughout the novel made me wish I was among the visitors.
I did shake my head over the names in this novel from Jeorgeullah Wickaam to Humeria and Sumeria Bingla (Hammy & Sammy). The names were close and probably could use a bit of distance. The novel did stick with the original plot but added some nuances, such as what went on in the mind of Sherry Looclus upon learning Farhat Kaleen’s proposal to Alys was turned down. I could sense Sherry’s anxiety as she figured out her next moves to "grab a husband” after all the times she had been turned down. You feel the rift between Alys and Sherry more keenly but you understand why Sherry would see Kaleen as a ticket to a better life.
I will say I tend to read novels that don’t include curse words or sexual situations. I remember Stephen King says curse words are natural and expected, but really I don’t need an author to tell me the exact curses someone uses. If the character curses, my imagination can supply a curse word. That said I’m not sure what age group the novel is intended, but I’m thinking this is for adults. Jaans and Sammy Bingla-Riyasat use a modified F-bomb during a New Year ’s Eve party – modified in that I’ve never heard that form used here in the U.S. Earlier in the novel, Sherry makes an allusion to masturbation to Alys, something about liking her hand when Alys isn’t interested in marriage. Some of the characters take a moral hit too but I realized in telling them I’d probably give away spoilers on the plot.
My overall impression was positive though in that I left the novel having learned something new about Pakistan and the Muslim faith. Using Pride & Prejudice as an outline, Kawal takes the reader on a cultural journey and breathes new life into Austen’s characters and plot. I laughed when Lady sprayed spittle as she made fun of Valentine Darsee’s first name, and later laughed when Jena was caught threading her moustache when Bingla came to call. It’s so much better than trying to get rid of sewing or clean up food trays in the drawing room. I look forward to seeing the completed novel in January 2019.