Play Book Tag discussion

I enjoyed this Pride and Prejudice retelling, with Muslim characters who live in Toronto Canada. Ayesha is a hijab wearing poet with a day job as a substitute teacher. Khalid dresses even more traditionally with a long white tunic and a very long (untrimmed since 10th grade) beard. He has a tech job with a large company, and a new boss who hates his “type.” Ayesha’s best friend Clara works in HR in the company and tries to protect his rights from their blatantly biased boss. Instead of a dance, Clara gets a group of colleaugues to go to the lounge where Ayesha performs a poem. Khalid is very judgmental about women in bars, and they both manage to offend the other (due to their pride and prejudices of course).

I liked some of clever ways the author connected the story to the original. I especially enjoyed the scenes with Ayesha and her grandparents. The original story about Darcy’s sister became was much more serious in the modern story, and Khalid’s mother was every bit as domineering as Darcy’s aunt. The counterpart to the Lydia story also had a decidedly modern twist. The story lagged at times, and one scheming plot was over the top, but I really enjoyed the book overall. I also enjoyed the development of the modern corporate story with the technology, clients and coworkers, with a nice twist at the end.

This had just the light touch I needed after some darker books this week.

I also liked this one, and agreed with much of your review, but I didn't get as much out of it in terms of the development of the corporate story as you.

Hannah wrote: "I also liked this one, and agreed with much of your review, but I didn't get as much out of it in terms of the development of the corporate story as you."

I worked in HR early in my career, and I could identify with everything Clara experienced. [I once had to tell the owner of my company that I wouldn’t fire the oldest employee we had. His manager thought he was doing a good job, it was the week before Christmas, and we already a union organizer wandering around town trying to talk to employees. I had to sign off on all terminations, and I took that seriously. I was young and naive.]