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"What’s new here—and stunningly so—is Jain’s engaging, intelligent voice, at turns wry and provocatively curious. The result is less a dating memoir than a thoughtful, incisive, exploration of the nature of connection. Ultimately, Jain seems to be asking, Is modernization really progress? After all, if with choice comes freedom, then why do so many single women feel imprisoned by their loneliness?"
– New York Times |
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"Romantic developments, ultimately, are not the main draw of the book. Outshining them are Jain's observations of modern Delhi, a wildly fermenting petri dish of old and new, East and West…This is a fun book and a smart, funny woman. Her author photo is extremely fetching. I know I'm the wrong gender, the wrong religion and the wrong caste, but I think any fool would marry Anita Jain.”
– Newsday |
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"By simply recounting her parents¹ journey to the West, the tension between their values and those of the society she grew up in and how it confuses her love life in both continents, Jain weaves together the rise of post-colonial India, the sexual dysfunctions of the post-feminist West and her chequered romantic record into an intimate and expansive book.
Economics, politics and history mingle with tales of bad sex, no sex, female angst and male incompetence to form a complete and insightful picture of twenty-first century womanhood both Eastern and Western."
-- Evening Standard |
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"In a charmingly wry voice, [Jain] deftly interweaves the stories of friends, relatives and suitors, each tale illuminating another twist of the labyrinthine path to happiness offered by life in a subcontinent saturated by both tradition and technology. Jain’s assured, insouciant intellectualism is as engaging to the reader as it is problematic in her search for a mate. A sparkling, enjoyable look at how globalization affects love."
– Kirkus Reviews
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"The qualities of a fine memoirist—self-deprecating wit, searing honesty—are almost fatally at odds with the measure of self-deception and capacity for subterfuge more common among the few who manage to have the torrid affair and the respectable arranged marriage. Ms. Jain is hopelessly sentimental about the idea of love, but unusually alert to its shortcomings in practice. If it were the other way round, she might have had better luck in Delhi's marriage market. But "Marrying Anita" wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable and entertaining a read."
– Wall Street Journal Asia |
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"Read Marrying Anita for a refreshing account of the marriage and social scene in India seen through the eyes of a woman with a formidable intelligence, abundant charm, and a big heart."
– Outlook Magazine, India |
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"Marrying Anita is a keyhole view into the 'new India.' Jain adeptly turns what could easily have been just a gossipy, navel-gazing version of sex and India's capital city into a look at what it means to be a single woman in 21st century, metropolitan India. The book...ends up being a surprisingly wistful, even forlorn look at love in a globalized world."
– San Jose Mercury News |
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"All the way, we root for her, finding both humor and heartache when they (her suitors) don't work out. Jain's style is engaging. Her observations are wry and worldly but seldom cynical. Even if the reader hasn't dated in New York or grown up in an Indian family, it's difficult not to sympathize as she searches for a lasting connection and wonders whether she'll wind up alone. Or to laugh at some of the sad sacks she ends up meeting through her father's matrimonial ads."
– San Antonio Express News |
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"Written in a literary yet compulsively readable voice and with remarkably fresh and merciless analyses of dating trends in both New York City and the curiously liberated "New India" social climate of Delhi. Believe it or not, there are new things to be said about love and friendship, and Jain covers them."
– Library Journal |
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"With her world-weary yet earnest voice, Jain is sure to delight readers.”
– Publishers Weekly |
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"There is something of Austen’s spirit in Jain’s work which paints a vivid portrait of a particular generation of Indian middle class society. Her narrative is full of acute observations about economic and social changes, class relations, and the dating scene in India’s capital." --
– Sepia Mutiny |
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"In contemporary full-disclosure fashion, she writes a rollicking memoir. Lest you think Jain's narrative reads like an amorous laundry list, romance comes with some poignant revelations.”
– Christian Science Monitor |
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