Feisty Choreographer, Lou 'Lungile' will do anything to avoid falling in love. Even more to avoid going home to South Africa, where she is traditionally engaged to a king. However, when she meets her soul mate Tex she is forced to confront the tradition she's been running away from.
Dudu Busani-Dube is the author of the popular Hlomu series of self-published novels, being Hlomu the Wife, Zandile the Resolute, and Naledi his Love, which has sold tens of thousands of copies.
Unlike her other work, I was not particularly a fan of the book, and I think it’s predominantly due to the fact that it is was a by-product of the upcoming movie. The style of writing was not what I am used to.
Lungile flees to New York to follow her dream of becoming a dancer as well as to runaway from a family duty imposed by her parents. She meets and falls in love with Tex, whom she eventually gets engaged to. She makes a trip back home to South Africa, and finds herself having to face the reality of a decision made by her parents long before she was born.
The book ended on a cliffhanger with a bit of a disappointment rather than excitement. The story was left unfinished for the reader to make of it what they think.
On a happier note, I am looking forward to her fourth installment of the Hlomu series.
I must say this is the best book ive read by the Author, i have read the other 3, but this one takes the cup. Beautiful Story and the ending left me wanting to read more, good thing is i can even create my own ending which is a happy one of course. Good Work sisi Dudu
I've enjoyed this book a lot! I liked the multi-nationality of it and I wish Tex had won in the end but it doesn't really matter😊. Excellent creativity and really a good read!
I’m giving this book three ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ and that’s because I’m generous. Compared to her first 3 books, I found this book flat, story line not particularly original and forced. I needed to remind myself every time that this is fiction and and I shouldn’t expect anything to be believable and as result, found myself rolling my eyes while turning pages. Horses for courses, unfortunately this one was not my cup of tea. I won’t even comment on the number of characters in the book and the author forcing to tie their stories so that they can blend in the end but like oil and water, for me that didn’t happen.
I'm quite disappointed in the book. I feel there was no effort in editing. I even feel like with every book that the author writes, the standard keeps dropping.
I got turned off on the first page where "Morija" is misspelled as "Morijo". How does that happen on the first page?
She spells Basotho names with a "D", yet it is a known fact that the Basotho names (from Lesotho) that have a "D" sound/pronounciation are spelled with an "L". So it's "Likeleli" not "Dikeledi".
She wrote "Seanamarena a ntate" instead of "Seanamarena sa ntate". Honestly, if you are going to write about people from a certain country/tribe, rather ensure that the proper research is done, and that all bases are covered.
I do love the 3 books from the Hlomu series, in fact, I'm a die-hard fan irregardless of the grammatical errors. But truthfully speaking, The Zulu Wedding is a bit of a "let down". I bought the book weeks ago, and am STILL struggling to finish it. FYI, I previously finished Hlomu The Wife within 2 days. Unfortunately I wouldn't recommend this book.
This was a very disappointing read. At times I felt that the author switches too frequently between scenes, and it then takes you a couple of paragraphs before you can figure out who is telling the story, which can get really confusing as this does not happen on a completely different chapter. Because of that, the flow was not very good. It's a very good storyline but was not properly unfolded. Initially i was really gripped, especially after the words "i was the bargain...", I could not wait for the story to unfold.
The ending was a complete turn off. I'll leave it at that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This was a nice, light read but I must admit that it didn’t blow me away. I kept thinking that I should have read “The Hlomu Series” first as an introduction to the author.
The story takes us through Lungile’s life journey and to where she must ultimately end up. I feel that some parts could have been cut so more time could be spent on what her life’s purpose was all about. But a part of me also felt that the book took this route to highlight how complex our lives are and how much we go through and how many detours we take to get us to where we are supposed to be.
This was a story about finding yourself, finding your peace, fighting your demons and chasing your dreams. A story about facing your past and not running from your problems. A story about learning how to deal with matters head on, no matter how difficult they may seem.
This is a story about finding freedom. Finding freedom in the decisions that we make. Finding freedom in living what we see as our best lives. Finding freedom in putting ourselves first. Finding freedom in putting our happiness first. Finding freedom in trusting our hearts and where they lead us. Our hearts always know the way, we should allow them to guide us.
The book ended just when it was getting exciting. I trusted Lungile to stand up for herself and finish what she started with Tex. Even though I did not get the ending I wanted the cliffhanger wasn't what I had anticipated. I enjoyed the book though. I love the way she writes- it's diverse and it was different from the other three. It's always beautiful when an author is able to do that. There's also something captivating about the way she writes about the "traditional" people- the staunch traditionalists. You know they're not supposed to be like that (because culture evolves and to some degree, even they should be open minded), but you're drawn into them, you wanna get to know them, you even wanna marry them- especially the Zulu ones. Argh! Gugu was made for love stories...BLACK LOVE stories.
I kinda wish Dudu hadn't taken on this project when they asked her to. Having to write a book based on a movie is a tall ask, especially since books are often more detailed and fascinating compared to their on screen adaptations. I feel like the movie writers tried to use the momentum Dudu has with her series and ultimately it didn't work because we read the book, felt "meh" but we waited for the movie anyway. The movie took years to hit the big screen and by then we just didn't care anymore.
Dudu is an amazing writer and what we have learnt as readers is that, if the story is captivating enough, we are willing to overlook minor grammar faux pas but Zulu Wedding did't give enough to blind us to all its faults and shortcomings.
I feel the author has improved her work in this book. I don't mean the story, but the language and the editing. There are no careless mistakes or overt use of 'fad' language. I choose not to critique the storyline as I understand it is borrowed from a movie.
I do, however, commend the author for her talent in bringing it to life so vividly. Dudu's super power is her ability to effortlessly bring real people out of her charecters. She doesn't tell you, she shows you the person. I can't help but feel like I know the type of person each is, they make sense even when their actions don't. I enjoyed their journey so much that I fear the film may fall short even though it came first.
My 1st Dudu read. Everyone was raving & I thought let me go in. Well written but nothing like any of the page turners I’ve read. It’s a typical story of a girl who is loved by too many people and no one at the same time & the choices she does not make. If that even makes sense. I read this one first in preparation for the ‘trilogy’. It didn’t give me the sense of loss one feels when you finish a book that you have really enjoyed. It was a quick read and the ending was rather unexpected.
Amazing read. No...Excellent read. I loved the book. A book that starts with the end. It's the first time I hear of a book based on a film, I'm used to things being the other way around.
Dudu Busani never disappoints. The book is quite different from the Hlomu the wife series but still felt like a gift, very funny too. All of her books are written in first person which takes one into the characters shoes.
The book started off well, but the writing just nose dived soon after the first chapter. The author needs some very basic lessons in grammar and writing. This reads like someone just wanted to fill a certain number of pages to get the book published. If I were grading this for even a primary school paper, the student would get an F. I cannot believe that this rubbish got published.
I have read most of Dudu's books, this is really not what I am used to.I enjoyed all her previous work.I have not watched the movie yet and I'm sure I will not bother watching. It's a good book,but she has done better before.
It took me a while to finish this book. It wasn’t as exciting as the other books Dudu Busaine- Dube wrote. I felt like after publishing a few books, grammatical mistakes would be low. The story line was nice though. It was funny.