THIS BOOK! THIS SERIES!!

I have so much love in my heart for all of these characters 😭 I don’t want to let any of them go. It’s so bittersweet to say goodbye!

For all the ones who took a little longer to figure it all out- this is for you!!

I have been waiting on this book for while. I enjoy a fake marriage/marriage of convenience! This did feel a lot like this was creating a problem where there it did not need one. If they had just talked to each other, their might not have been a problem to date/marriage for real from the start.

I love a good Nisha Sharma book. They always bring me joy and make me smile and gives off classic Bollywood vibes. I will say, this was not my favorite of her works, but still quite dramatic and fun to read. I did find the pacing to be a little inconsistent and there were parts that dragged on for too long. All in all, a good read!

Rating: 4.5/5 ⭐️

HAPPY PUB DAY and thank you @nishawrites & @avonbooks for the eARC of Marriage & Masti!

Marriage & Masti is the final book of the If Shakespeare Was an Auntie series and this book was so bittersweet. I loved it. I love Veera and Deepak and their love story was a close second to Kareena & Prem’s for me. I’m just sad to say goodbye to this series.

Again, these books are so much more than romcoms and Shakespeare adaptations. The love and respect shown the desi culture in this series, but especially M&M is so appreciated in a very yt publishing industry. The Hindu culture is beautiful and I loved how much tradition Sharma incorporated in this novel.

I enjoyed the friends ro lovers. I loved that they tried to deny their feelings but couldn’t keep their hands off each other 😜 Y’all know I love a steadfast man and LAWD, Deeps might be a lil oblivious to what he has in Veera but he more than makes up for it 🥵

I wanted more spice and honestly more drama in the end but overall I really enjoyed the journey to Veera and Deepak’s HEA.

LIKES:
💍 Marriage of Convenience
💞 Friends to lovers
🇮🇳 Indian-American rep
🌶️ Spicy!
🎭 Shakespeare reimagined

love this series but this was my least favorite of all of them, but I also loved seeing all the other characters from the other books and overall still enjoyable!

If she writes it I will read it!!! This was a great ending to the series but I am sad that it’s done. Felt like I was watching a 90’s Bollywood movie while reading this! I was all giddy.

4.5 stars rounded up.

While I'm incredibly sad that the 'If Shakespeare Were An Aunty" series has come to an end, this could not have been a better ending to it.

Off the bat, I need to give Nisha her flowers: the parallels to Twelfth Night were incredibly subtle while not choosing to follow the play beat-by-beat and instead focusing on very real issues of misogyny, trauma and family dynamics in South Asian communities. I'm also a friends-to-lovers apologist, so Veera and Deepak are very near and dear to my heart, even with Deepak's incredibly amount of stupidity when it came to realizing his BIG feelings for Veera (this, at least, is a real life phenomena in my experience). Their chemistry, banter, and friendship was incredibly palpable and it jumps off the page at you.

Will always pick up any book Nisha writes, in any genre.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of Marriage & Masti by Nisha Sharma!

Marriage & Masti was the perfect book I needed at the time to get me out of a current reading slump.

Veera has had a whirlwind past eight months, falling in love with her best friend who is engaged to someone else and going no contact with her father. Traveling with her sister, she needs some help in the name of Deepak, that best friend who has shattered her heart.

Deepak's world has just turned upside down when his fiancee decides to leave him, announcing this publicly via social media. His fiancee that he needed on his side as her vote may decide if he comes the next CEO of the company. Needing an escape, he immediately flies down to help Veera out.

Everything goes smoothly until photographers capture both Veera and Deepak accidentally getting married. Marriage is something neither of them thought would happen, Veera shoving away her feelings and Deepak thinking she always just thought of him as a friend. With both needing this marriage though, they decide to go through with it once hitting American soil again. With the help of the Aunties, close friends and a few reliable family members, everything seems to be going as planned.... or is it?

I love Nisha's writing because I always know that I will learn something new to share with others culturally. There were so many bookmarks for Indian weddings and cultural holidays/celebrations that I look forward to looking into in the near future. I enjoyed the friends to lovers, fake marriage and truly felt the emotions from both character's sides. Having some strong feelings for side characters made me want to scream as I finished up the book and look forward to reading whatever Sharma publishes next!

I am absolutely obsessed! This was a great way to end the series. Veera and Deepak were everything I wanted and more. Thank you Nisha for this amazing serious.

Funny, smart and spicy! I love reading books that not only entertain me but also teach me something. This series has taught me so much about the culture of India.

I'd heard a lot of not-great things about the first two books in the "Is Shakespeare was an Auntie" series, so I really wasn't looking to read this one, but I'm glad I picked this up! The parallels to Twelfth Night were there, woven in subtly, which I absolutely appreciated; I've read a lot of retellings in my time, and sometimes the author's need to match story beats overwhelms the originality of a story, and I liked that Sharma chose to focus on tangible concerns of tense family dynamics and misogyny through Veera's relationship with her father and her resulting trauma. The romance was well-balanced as well, and Veera and Deepak consistently had great chemistry! There's one instance in one of the sex scenes that felt a bit out of place, so I'm still thinking about how that came a little out of nowhere, but since the sex scenes are pretty minimal and the protagonists' chemistry is palpable in other ways throughout, I wasn't too bothered by it. I thoroughly enjoyed the third act (and hurrah for the lack of a contrived breakup! I will never not celebrate this!) and the jeevansathi scene had me cackling because it was very dramatic for no reason (but delightful all the same). Overall, a fan!

Nisha Sharma hits it out of the park with this final installment in her If Shakespeare Were an Auntie series. I've enjoyed all three books but this one is my favorite. I loved the humor, the heart, the spice, the Indian-American representation, and the generational - and gender - conflicts. Sharma knows of what she writes and conveys the obstacles many first generation Indian-Americans, especially women, face with humor, wit, and clear-eyed truth. It makes this book fun to read while also being thought provoking.

Friendship is a strong thread in this series and it's been enjoyable to watch the six main characters (three women/three men) evolve over the course of the three books as well as their interwoven relationships. It's a relatable reflection of what we all face as friendships transition due to growth, marriage, and other factors in our lives, occasionally leaving some of us on the outside looking in.

As stated in the book's blurb, the relationship between Veera and Deepak is messy and spicy. It's also funny and endearing. I'm a huge fan of fake relationships in fiction and this one had me laughing, sighing, cringing, and cheering.

As with the first two books in the series, family and community played huge roles in Deepak's and Veera's journeys. Particular favorites were Deepak's mother and, of course, the Aunties. We should all be so fortunate to have such a group of Aunties in our lives.

While each book in this trilogy stands well on its own, I'm glad I read them order to appreciate the full effect of the evolution of the six main characters, their friendships, and their romantic relationships. I enthusiastically recommend all three books.

ARC received from publisher via NetGalley
Fair and unbiased review

I wanted to like this book but it felt very disjointed. I was disappointed that this was the last book in the series since I really wanted it to end on a high note.

I was hoping to enjoy this a lot more than I did. I found the pace of the book to be a little slow which led to me losing interest. I did like the characters and the overall plot of the novel though.

<b>Rep:</b> South Asian Rep (Punjabi Americans)
<b>Genre:</b> Contemporary Romance, Adult
<b>Spice?: YES </b>

- Accidental Marriage, Marriage of Convenience
- Friends to Lovers

**Thoughts:**

Wow, I have mixed feelings for this book. It had potential and fell a bit flat. I do have to say that I had high expectation since this is the last book in the trilogy. I really really wanted to like this book more.

First of all, an accidental HINDU wedding while drunk is like impossible!
Indian weddings are hours long! Also, the priest would NOT be okay with being drunk during the religious ceremony. I understand that Goa is known to be a party state in India, but the priests are still very religious. (Speaking as someone from there).

The fake marriage plot-line felt forced, chaotic, and overemphasized. I got annoyed at how many times ‘fake marriage’ was mentioned at one point. Lol

The beginning of the book itself seemed so chaotic. The shipwreck, calling Deepak across the world, getting fake married, etc. It was a rough start.

I expected a super cute friends to lovers type situation, but their love felt a bit shallow somehow. More lust and infatuation … than love. I guess I understand that the tension has been building with them for years, hence the sudden sex scenes haha.

<u>Character Discussion</u>

Character dynamics also fell flat and were at times just confusing.

Veera's sister, Sana, was frustratingly inconsistent, veering between manipulative and supportive. Sana was so confusing, she wanted them to fake marry and insisted they do it. But then later blames Veera for staying in the marriage and supporting Deepak, and then deciding that she would run for CEO, like what lol. Also her actions of betraying Veera’s trust were brushed aside too easily.

Deepak was a good husband but how could he not see that Veera loved him! How did he just realize he had feelings for her during their drunk wedding!

The cultural portrayal of Veera’s mother’s devotion to her husband was, sadly, a realistic reflection of some traditional dynamics. Indian woman will sometimes blindly support their husbands even if it affects their relationship with their children.

The dad also seemed to follow an old-school approach where men believed that daughters should get married and just stay home. But it was confusing since he raised his daughters to be independent women and learn the business. I wish we dove more into why the dad did a 180 and decided to fire them (other than jealousy).

The book had potential!
I just think this book made no sense in too many ways, it lacked the depth that I wanted.

<i>Thank you to Nisha Sharma and the team for the ARC which I received in exchange for an honest review.<i>

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

the perfect end to the triology! nisha has truly crafted a little bubble of ensemble characters throughout the series that pop in and out, making all the books feel super connected, even if they center different characters. the conclusion of w.s. gupta? absolute genius.

moving onto the actual romance! i feel like veera and deepak were the strongest couple with regards to characterization because we see snippets of her pining for deepak in the previous books. so this was a long time coming. the continuation makes the book feel super real, as opposed to a lot of the insta-love that some books create due to a lack of time. we can see deepak's love for veera grow, and while it's different than veera's journey, you can see how him caring for her slowly (and quickly) evolves into love. on the other hand, i felt like veera was in love with the idea of deepak at the beginning of the book, but that love turned into realer love as the two start living together and spending time together again.

I loved this book. Actually the entire series and I am sad to see it come to an end. Veera and Deepak started as friends, accidentally got married, then realized they were in love. If you haven’t read the other books in the series, do it! You won’t regret it.


💜 friends to lovers
💜 fake marriage
💜 open door romance

This series from Nisha has been one of my favorites over the past couple of years and this book did not disappoint. I loved the tension and the pining between Deepak and Veera and the family drama made all the stakes feel that much higher. I think this one might be my fave in the series!