This book reminded me a lot of
The Casual Vacancy, though this book has of course been published much earlier. It only gets 3 stars for the same reason
TCV did. Great writing, realistic characters, written dialects, great building up towards the end, and then... Nothing. This book seemed to have much more of an aim and an ending than
The Casual Vacancy, but the pace is so slow in the start and the ending so chaotic and rushed...
A real shame, because it's an interesting portrait of life after immigration, amongst others.
“Where I come from," said Archie, "a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her."
"Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean," said Samad tersely, "that it is a good idea.”