By Uzma Jalaluddin
ISBN: 9780593544075
‘Much Ado About Nada’, with all this flaws, is a treat for fans of South Asian chick-lit who want to read a book without very high expectations. Much like watching a romcom movie where you know the story won’t be extraordinary, but you want to relax with a good timepass.
Synopsis
“Nada Syed is stuck. On the cusp of thirty, she’s still living at home with her brothers and parents in the Golden Crescent neighbourhood of Toronto, resolutely ignoring her mother’s unsubtle pleas to get married already. While Nada has a good job as an engineer, it’s a far cry from realizing her start-up dreams for her tech baby, Ask Apa, the app that launched with a whimper instead of a bang because of a double-crossing business partner. Nothing in her life has turned out the way it was supposed to, and Nada feels like a failure. Something needs to change, but the past is holding on too tightly to let her move forward.
Nada’s best friend Haleema is determined to pry her from her shell…and what better place than at the giant annual Muslim conference held downtown, where Nada can finally meet Haleema’s fiancé, Zayn. And did Haleema mention Zayn’s brother Baz will be there?
What Haleema doesn’t know is that Nada and Baz have a past—some of it good, some of it bad and all of it secret. At the conference, that past all comes hurtling at Nada, bringing new complications and a moment of reckoning. Can Nada truly say goodbye to once was or should she hold tight to her dreams and find their new beginnings?”
What’s to like:
The book adds to a growing list of romance books with Muslim representation. As the story develops the reader wants to keep the pages turning to learn about the Nada and Baz’s past and know how they end up from something more than friendship to a cold and strained relation. Baz’s cold and aloof but caring and kind character was my favorite.
Also, the little plot twist in the middle made the story even more interesting and Muslim readers like me must have taken a sign of relief.
What’s not to like:
I was not entirely convinced that the reason given for Nada and Baz’s estrangement was sufficient given the plot twist about their relation. Some of the characters were very stereotypical and it seems that the author does not elaborate on them much such as Haleema and Zayn and their relationship.
Plus, while I really value immigrant stories in the West for telling stories about people who can often feel unseen in mainstream literature, it does bother me to find a recurrent theme of older immigrants being stuck in their ‘old ways’ or having to let go of things just to be able to keep up with life in the West. It is a reality and one that all immigrants deal with, but I wish our stories would move beyond the surface level.
In some places the author has included sexual content which seemed reminiscent of typical Hollywood chick flick movies and could have been written differently to make this a halal romance novel, which it sadly isn’t.
Book Review Rating: 3.5/5 – Feel-Good read.
Clean Content Rating: Intermediate. Sexual content about marital relations. Age advisory: 18+