"The Newlyweds"

I’ve just finished to read „The Newlyweds” of Nell Freudenberger. I’m starting to miss about this lecture because it took me some time to read it. "The Newlyweds" has nearly 500 pages. Usually I don’t read the books about oriental culture but this time I made an exception and I’m happy for it.

This book is about Amina, 24 years old woman from Bangladesh who meets an American man on the portal dating. But it is not so romantic because the biggest aim of Amina is to have a good husband who can give her and her parents a possibility to live better, in the USA. She has to wait 3 years before receiving an American nationality. Then, she can invite her parents there. Despite of fact that Amina lives in America and she has everything, she is not happy. She has a challenge to live in a different culture. The book is long and it contains a lot of events from her and her parents’ life in America but also in Bangladesh.

We have also impression that she loves an ancient friend from childhood and she wants to quit everything in USA and live in Bangladesh with him.

The parents of Amina have big problems to receive a visa to the USA, but finally they have it. On the last pages of the book, we can read about how they leave Bangladesh and fly to America. For me these pages are extremely sad. It’s just a fiction, but how these poor people from the Orient will live in a completely different world ? Is it worth it ? I’d like to know how they would live in this new world.

I'm also wondering if there is still this desire from the part of the family so that woman has a good and rich husband. Because in this book they still choose a husband by different criteria. Or nowadays is it normal to marry someone who we love?

The reality In Bangladesh is strongly different than in Europe and it was interesting to find out something new.