Review: Touching
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 7, 2013
"Shattered Dreams: The Arranged Marriage" by Jyotsna Ramani is a short but for me incredibly moving story about a young girl and her arranged marriage. In a world where love is not the only sound foundation for a marriage one can relate to our heroine's doubts and differing thoughts and feelings about agreeing to such a marriage herself. What is important in her life? Career, love, material security, partnership, family?Parental pressure, even if not expressed directly, and societal conventions, get her to hesitate and fail to make up her own mind in time.I particularly loved the details in the description of the entire process of the arranging as much as I loved the insight into our heroine's manifold thoughts on the matter.Unfortunately in this case materialism is the driving force behind her parents decision to push her into the marriage but in this well presented novel we get a hint at other possible reasoning to enter such an arrangement.As Western European I found this book accidentally insightful rather than lecturing, the story at the heart of this book is incredibly touching and stayed with me long after I finished the book.