Why read Brick Lane?

Book cover of Brick Lane

Book description

Nazneen's inauspicious entry to the world, an apparent stillbirth on the hard mud floor of a Bangladeshi village hut, imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents when she is married off to Chanu. Her life in London's Tower Hamlets is, on the surface, calm. For…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Brick Lane as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Leslie Larson

Author

I love this book because it so completely submerged me in the life and surroundings of the protagonist, Nazneen, a young Muslim woman who leaves her small Bangladeshi village to live in a London council flat in an arranged marriage with an older man.

Ali conveys a visceral sense of the stifling apartment, the tedious work, the bleak weather, and the loneliness and dullness of Nazneen’s life. Not that it’s a place we want to be, but we experience Nazneen’s yearning for escape so profoundly that we root passionately for her as she pursues some degree of freedom and purpose.

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From Leslie's 3 favorite reads in 2023.