Books Read in July

Marrying Anita by Anita Jain

Anita Jain is a clever, Indian-American journalist who is over thirty and wants to get married.

She becomes tired of the dating scene in New York.  Most of the men she dates tell her at the start that 'they're not looking for anything serious'.  She writes that if they say that at the beginning, they think that they can easily date women for a while and then leave them.  Honesty, she writes, is about their only good quality.

Jain thinks that the Indian attitude to marriage is better.  Indians don't see anything wrong with wanting to get married and they don't place as much value on  independence and freedom.  She decides to live in India and try her chances there.  The men who she dates in India seemed to me to be just as bad or worse, unfortunately.

Jain annoyed me a bit by drinking too much and taking drugs.  There seemed to be even more of this in India than America, surprisingly.  She also struck me as rather silly in other ways at times.  However, her comparisons of Western and Indian attitudes and her descriptions of life in Delhi are well-written and atmospheric.

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