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77th out of 295 books
—
440 voters
The Newlyweds
by
Nell Freudenberger (Goodreads Author)
A powerful, funny, richly observed tour de force by one of America’s most acclaimed young writers: a story of love and marriage, secrets and betrayals, that takes us from the backyards of America to the back alleys and villages of Bangladesh.
In The Newlyweds, we follow the story of Amina Mazid, who at age twenty-four moves from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York, for love....more
In The Newlyweds, we follow the story of Amina Mazid, who at age twenty-four moves from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York, for love....more
Hardcover, 337 pages
Published
May 1st 2012
by Knopf
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I loved Nell Freudenberger's new book! I am so happy to have discovered a writer who can take immigration, love, and marriage to weave a beautiful story that has universal appeal. The newlywed woman, Amina, is a young woman from Bangladesh who meets George, an American from Rochester, on a EuroAsian dating website. The first half of the book was a lesson on the issues Amina faced in trying to acclimate to her new culture. Ms. Freudenberger writes in a way that taught and reaffirmed for me many i...more
At first I was captivated by this story ; a woman from Bangladesh marrying an American ,meeting him thru e-mail,wishing to go to America and her explanations and expectation of a new life in a new place. It seemed very interesting his journey to to meet her,her family and their subsequent life together. The portrait of Amina 's husband David emerges slowly and gracefully and we come to know him as a decent and thoughtful man. BUT alas and alack .. there is something BAD he did, (spoiler alert!)...more
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This book was a really good window into the contrasts between cultures. It managed to weave personal stories using the differing threads from cultural experiences. I was fascinated to discover that the American part of the story took place in Pittsford NY where I lived for 25 years. I too emigrated there like Amina did but i was with my husband and two children. I also went to MCC as she did, in my case I wanted to study the history of what was to be my new country. Amina's return to Bangladesh...more
This was my favorite novel that I read in 2012. I have been recommending it to everyone. Every page or so, the author makes another insightful comment that makes the reader
stop and think. Yet it is a compulsively readable story with incredibly well drawn characters.
This is the story of Amina, a 24 year old women from Bangladesh, who meets George, a 34 year old engineer from Rochester, New York on an internet matchmaking site. Amina, who was forced by poverty to leave school at age 13 but studied...more
stop and think. Yet it is a compulsively readable story with incredibly well drawn characters.
This is the story of Amina, a 24 year old women from Bangladesh, who meets George, a 34 year old engineer from Rochester, New York on an internet matchmaking site. Amina, who was forced by poverty to leave school at age 13 but studied...more
The Newlyweds
Nell Freudenberger
A very interesting book that had the potential to be great. There was much to like – the characters, particularly the protagonist (Amina), are rich and believable, the plot is slow but not moribund, and the observations of a young woman coming to American from Bangladesh (via an internet marriage site) are both naïve and wise. Both Amina and her new husband, George, have their secrets, which are ultimately revealed, of course. There is also a great deal of provocat...more
Nell Freudenberger
A very interesting book that had the potential to be great. There was much to like – the characters, particularly the protagonist (Amina), are rich and believable, the plot is slow but not moribund, and the observations of a young woman coming to American from Bangladesh (via an internet marriage site) are both naïve and wise. Both Amina and her new husband, George, have their secrets, which are ultimately revealed, of course. There is also a great deal of provocat...more
I came to this book with absolutely no expectations: I hadn't chosen the book, it hadn't been recommended to me and I hadn't read anything about it. So it could've gone either way, really.
I really liked it. It was a sympathetic portrait both of Bangladeshi and American society and most of the characters were well thought out and allowed real engagement. Amina was especially well presented; despite never having been in a similar situation, I could really identify with her struggle between duty a...more
I really liked it. It was a sympathetic portrait both of Bangladeshi and American society and most of the characters were well thought out and allowed real engagement. Amina was especially well presented; despite never having been in a similar situation, I could really identify with her struggle between duty a...more
The writing is good. Kind of boring and slow moving like Cloud Atlas but Cloud Atlas had like a different quality or feel to its narration. It was very honest in its feeling but there was so much reality in it that I wanted something to make it special, like a book. If I had wanted just straight up reality I wouldn't have went to a book and would have stayed in my own world. There was a feeling of romance or magic or warmth that was missing in the book and the writing. The husband, and really ma...more
I love books about immigrants in contemporary America and this book was no exception. However, I have read so many good ones that this book faced stiff competition and for that reason rates only 3 instead of 5 stars. A woman from Bangaladesh sets out to meet an American online to fulfill her family's dream to emigrate to America. She doesn't mention to her prospective suitor that he is getting a package deal, but keeps that information to herself until they have been married for some time, and t...more
I most recently finished Nell Freudenberger's The Newlyweds. Another much-lauded recent hardcover. From Bangladesh, Amina and her doting, complicated parents pin their hopes for their future on the marriage she has arranged with George in Rochester, who she meets on an online dating site geared towards east Asians and their North American suitors. This is a sweet, quiet little story about two people moving across nations to be together and carrying with them the baggage, desires, and secrets of...more
This book details the complexities and expectations accompanying a mixed race marriage between Amina, from Bangladesh, and George, an American. Despite the rave reviews about this book, I was disappointed - I didn't find their relationship that realistic, and knowing what I know about Asian cultures and their affinity with arranged marriages, I found it very hard to believe that Amina's parents would have let her go off to the US with a man she knew nothing about that she had independently found...more
This novel is about the first few years of the marriage of Amina, a native Bangladeshi, and George, a man from Rochester, NY. The couple met online when Amina, searching for love as well a means of advancement for herself and her family, posts a profile to an online dating site. They marry in America and George promises to have an Islamic wedding and to convert, which never quite happens. I found this to be a completely engrossing story, and was unsure, in the end, whether to find it hopeful or...more
Though this might be classified as more of a woman's read I enjoyed it. It is told from the perspective of a Bangladeshi Muslim woman who meets an American man via the web and eventually meets and marries him. The story then is about her new life and relationships in the US, as well as with family and friends back in Bangladesh. I confess to having skipped through a few chapters to get to the last chapters, and so I missed things that would have made those chapters clearer, though I could infer...more
Amina lives in Bangladesh but wishes to marry an American and finds George, an electrical engineer from Rochester NY through an EuroAsia matchmaking website who will do. They settle into a new three bedroom house in the suburbs where Amina keeps a spotless house, improves the flower garden, and is easily employed in short term low wages work. Her husband has a professional job but is encouraging to Amina about her education, her job prospects.
They live a sterile life until Amina tries to get pre...more
They live a sterile life until Amina tries to get pre...more
Cultures clash gently but persistently in Freudenberger's second novel, in which American electrical engineer George marries Bangladeshi teacher Amina and brings her to live in Rochester, New York. Having conducted a mostly online romance that was largely practical on both sides, the two must now adjust their expectations to the reality in front of them. We experience the relationship through the eyes of Amina, who finds out a secret about George's romantic past even as she's grappling with her...more
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I had a hard time putting this wonderful novel down. It's a story of a Bengali woman flying to Rochester, New York, to marry an American man she met online, and the lengths she goes to throughout the novel to bring her parents to America to live with them.
It was the best combination there can be in novels--a gripping plot (with lots of unexpected events) and great characterization. Also, I was truly surprised by the ending (and, although I found it somewhat sad and disappointing, was the more th...more
It was the best combination there can be in novels--a gripping plot (with lots of unexpected events) and great characterization. Also, I was truly surprised by the ending (and, although I found it somewhat sad and disappointing, was the more th...more
I'm giving this one 4 stars, but I'm still debating over 3 stars. I'm conflicted in the way the novel itself seems conflicted. When I finished, I wasn't sure what point, if any, Freudenberger wanted to make. Of course, life itself is a series of complex situations in which one often doesn't know that is the best/right thing to do, and the novel captures that confusion very well. Marriage is tough enough when the partners have grown up in the same culture. Amina comes to Rochester from Bangladesh...more
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May 22, 2012
Radhika
added it
It was an interesting read. To understand the psyche of populations who live in countries that think coming to America will give them a better chance at life and high status in the home country.
Amina a middle class girl from Bangladesh, finds an online match for herself a white American engineer George Stillman from Rochester.It is an arranged match of the 21st century.Then starts the interesting cultural differences. The expectation of an American and the psyche of Amina who comes from a diffe...more
Amina a middle class girl from Bangladesh, finds an online match for herself a white American engineer George Stillman from Rochester.It is an arranged match of the 21st century.Then starts the interesting cultural differences. The expectation of an American and the psyche of Amina who comes from a diffe...more
When I pick up a book entitled The Newlyweds, I expect it to be…well, about newlyweds: in this case, Amina Mazid, who moves from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York to marry a man she meets online – George Stillman.
And, since the cultures are so vastly different, I expect something else: a “ring” of authenticity, similar to the stories that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or Jhumpa Lahiri explore so convincingly in their works. I expect a work that’s rich in character and brimming with the realities of a...more
And, since the cultures are so vastly different, I expect something else: a “ring” of authenticity, similar to the stories that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or Jhumpa Lahiri explore so convincingly in their works. I expect a work that’s rich in character and brimming with the realities of a...more
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From a modest premise - a Bangladeshi woman comes to America to wed her online match - Nell Freudenberger has created a poignant, vividly drawn drama of how couples live today. I can't vouch for whether the cultural details are accurate - my exposure to Bangladesh consists of having one Bangladeshi employee and working in the country for a very strange week - but the emotional interactions ring true. Amina is a bright woman whose dreams may seem modest by American standards, but for someone comi...more
The Newlyweds
By
Nell Freudenberger
In a nutshell...
George and Amina meet through an online dating service. George is a rather stiff American. Amina comes from Bangladesh. They meet. They marry. Confusion reigns.
My thoughts after reading...
I felt immersed in George and Amina's issues as I read this lovely book. The book is about how they came together and their efforts to stay together when Amina discovers that George has kept something from her. It is an insight into what it is like for someone fr...more
By
Nell Freudenberger
In a nutshell...
George and Amina meet through an online dating service. George is a rather stiff American. Amina comes from Bangladesh. They meet. They marry. Confusion reigns.
My thoughts after reading...
I felt immersed in George and Amina's issues as I read this lovely book. The book is about how they came together and their efforts to stay together when Amina discovers that George has kept something from her. It is an insight into what it is like for someone fr...more
Amina, is a young woman from Bangladesh who meets George, an American from Rochester, on a EuroAsian dating website.
After marrying George, she is brought to America to live in his three-bedroom house where she keeps an immaculate home but soon grows bored and starts working in short term, low wage work while she attends college.
In Amina’s culture, it is customary and important to live with one’s parents…especially after having a child. George and Amina start trying to get pregnant as Amina is...more
After marrying George, she is brought to America to live in his three-bedroom house where she keeps an immaculate home but soon grows bored and starts working in short term, low wage work while she attends college.
In Amina’s culture, it is customary and important to live with one’s parents…especially after having a child. George and Amina start trying to get pregnant as Amina is...more
Underwhelmed.
The premise set me up to be disappointed because I presumed since both individuals had secret motives and unresolved feelings about prior romantic possibilities that I would get to hear both sides of the story. I didn't.
Instead, I got Amina calculating, Amina hesitating, Amina scheming, Amina presuming, Amina leveraging, Amina wavering, Amina straying, and Amina ultimately getting her way far more often than I felt she deserved to.
And George was so narrowly characterized through he...more
The premise set me up to be disappointed because I presumed since both individuals had secret motives and unresolved feelings about prior romantic possibilities that I would get to hear both sides of the story. I didn't.
Instead, I got Amina calculating, Amina hesitating, Amina scheming, Amina presuming, Amina leveraging, Amina wavering, Amina straying, and Amina ultimately getting her way far more often than I felt she deserved to.
And George was so narrowly characterized through he...more
Nell Freudenberger has populated The Newlyweds with characters so real and alive it felt as if I were reading non-fiction. Amina has escaped the poverty and difficulties of her life in Bangladesh as a modern day "mail-order" bride. She is adjusting to her new life in Rochester, NY with her husband George whom she met on an international dating site. Amina struggles with differences in culture and climate and spends her time working towards the goals of bringing her parents to the U.S., a college...more
I enjoyed this book, but found the last 40 pages or so to be a little weak. Amina is a woman who lives in Bangladesh who meets her husband on a dating website called EuroAsian.com. From there, she meets George, who goes to visit her. They fall in love and she ends up moving to the states, where she gets her green card and marries George. The book is about cultural differnces, between Amina and her family. Amina is trying to adjust to American life, but her aging parents don't understand it. Amin...more
This book, an examination of a marriage between a Bangladeshi woman and an American man who meet via an Internet love match site was compelling enough that I read it in a matter of days, ignoring my looming tax appointment and staying up into the wee hours to finish it. There were some dramatic turns of plot but mainly what drove the novel was the story of cultural differences, expectations and adjustments made in the daily life of the couple as seen through the eyes of the protagonist as she im...more
Mar 18, 2013
Robert E. Kennedy Library
added it
This is a novel about an arranged marriage between a Bengali woman and an American man — the catch being that it’s the bride and groom who do the arranging. They meet through a dating site; though Amina’s parents approve of George, after meeting him, it’s Amina who has chosen him. Though the story kept me going, I found the characters, especially George, somewhat stereotypical: he’s an engineer, and Freudenberger gives him just the personality you might expect a cartoon engineer to have: rigid,...more
This novel is a very subtle portrait of love and expectations in a cross-cultural relationship, and I think the author does a wonderful job of letting Amina Mazid's extended family tell their stories and define their personalities through dialog, observation, and action.
I recently read some advice given to young women about to graduate from college. In a nutshell, it was: don't over plan. Some times the best things that happen in your life are those you least plan for or expect. I thought abo...more
I recently read some advice given to young women about to graduate from college. In a nutshell, it was: don't over plan. Some times the best things that happen in your life are those you least plan for or expect. I thought abo...more
I loved this book as you can tell from the five stars. Well written, intricate and well-developed characters. Very interesting twist that was unexpected. After reading the first 50 pages or so, I googled the author because I was sure that she was an immigrant herself so I was surprised to learn that she was born and raised in NYC. Freudenberger was able to get inside the head and character of Amina, the protagonist, and describe perfectly the two halves of her life: her first 26 years and upbrin...more
A disappointing look at intercultural marriage. The book starts with great promise, as we get introduced to Amina, her Bangladeshi family, and her online courtship with George who may or may not be the real deal. Freudenberger chooses not to dwell on the building of a relationship by email and moves the plot forward quickly to the life of the eponymous newlyweds who of course begin to discover unexpected things about each other ...and that is when the novel gets stuck. The characters fail to gro...more
I have to be honest, I was completely underwhelmed by this book. There was so much build-up around it, but for me the story just didn't deliver. First off, the title seemed misleading, as it wasn't so much the story of a marriage or a relationship, but Amina's immigration story. At times I felt like I was reading an Anne Tyler novel with the usual quirky characters, but unlike Tyler, this author didn't make me fall in love with her protagonists. George was one dimensional, a stolid, secretive ma...more
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Nell Freudenberger is the author of the novel The Dissident and the story collection Lucky Girls, winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; both books were New York Times Book Review Notables. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellowship from the New York Publi...more
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“It seemed incredible that it could be the same road, the same asphalt, that they had traveled so many times together. You thought that you were the permanent part of your own experience, the net that held it all together—until you discovered that there were many selves, dissolving into one another so quickly over time that the buildings and the trees and even the pavement turned out to have more substance than you did.”
—
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May 14, 2012 01:36pm