Brick Lane: A Novel
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Brick Lane: A Novel
by Authors:
Monica Ali
Released: 09 September, 2003
ISBN: 0743243307
Hardcover
Sales Rank: 1,112
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List price:
$25.00
Our price:
$17.50
(You save: $7.5)
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| Book > Brick Lane: A Novel > Customer Reviews: |
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Average Customer Rating: 
Brick Lane: A Novel >
Customer Review #1:
 Dont get what all the fuss is about
I honestly dont get it. As another reviewer suggested, this writer is just the luckiest girl alive....shes riding a hot wave of interest in ethnic fiction, and the Bangladesh/London setting is what must have sold this book. It cant be the writing. This is one of the most painfully boring and slow moving stories that I have read. The opening is quite good, but from there it just fizzles. We know far too much of her old husband Chandu and his weird habit of playing with his stomach. She repeats things endlessly in this book. The letters from the sister are also painful to read, and as someone else mentioned for some unknown reason they are in broken english, which makes zero sense. The letter would have been written in their native tongue, and unless the sister has dyslexia or is completely illiterate, it just make no sense to have her writing be so bad.This book is just so easy to put down. It amazes me that for all the really good books out there, this one is garnering so much unwarranted attention.
Brick Lane: A Novel >
Customer Review #2:
 dishonest trash
I really regret having bought and having read this book. The first few pages seem to start off well, with the birth of the main character Nazeen. Appearing to be a still born she somehow comes back to life after which her parents decide that she should not be taken hospital but instead be Left To Her Fate. This of course becomes the central theme of the book, how she struggles with taking action or being passive in her life. At first the books start impressed me, but after a while it dawned on me she stole this idea from Rushdie, who often has a very dramatic event occur within the first few pages that becomes symbolic for events thereafter. But Rushdie doesnt beat the symbolism to death! He leaves it there for you to discover. In Brick Lane literally hundreds of times we are reminded that Nazeen was Left To Her Fate. So even this apparently good (although plagiarized) opening is spoiled. The rest of the book is basically just drivel, with the exception of one decent passage while Nazeen son is in the hospital. Ive read books with 1 dimensional characters, but as I read this book I was wondering if it was possible to have 0 dimensional characters and events? Characters so lacking they suck out your personality as you read? The end of the book is just a nose dive into abysmal. Its so bad its offensive. Nazeen leaves her apartment to go looking for her daughter and spots a young girl somewhere and remarks, "Nazeen had learned to recognize the face of a refugee child that traumatized stillness, the need they have to learn to play again". Not only is this overly sentimental, up until this point there had been no mention of refugees or the struggles of refugees. What offends me here is that this book does not handle any big issues (racism, poverty, refugees,..) it co-opts them, and it rubs me the wrong way just the same way that those Shell Oil commercials claiming they care about the environment did. Even the title, Brick Lane, which is a trendy ethnic area in London, feels dishonest to me. Brick Lane would be a great title for a book about poverty, ghettos and gentrification; of course nothing that real is ever mentioned. If you want to read trash then at least read honest trash, this book is trash and dishonest.
Brick Lane: A Novel >
Customer Review #3:
 why abridge an excellent book and reading
this reading is excellent..save that it is abridged..why oh why?..monetary reasons i presume. certainly they are not "improving" the novel. a shame really, but still the reading is well done and brings the characters to life.
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Brick Lane: A Novel >
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