Rating: 
Summary: Falls flat in it's won verbosity
Review: Since most of the reviewers have already shared the storyline of this novel, I will spare the reader any more- much as I wish Monica Ali had done. The novel is 300 pages too long...Read Jhumpa Lahiri instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully Written
Review: May be we can compare this book with Purple Color by Alice Walker. A story of two sisters a distance away writing about religion and family. In fact both are using slangs. One is African American and and the other Bangladeshi.
This book is a good bet nonetheless. Beautifully written and coincide with the growing interest on Islam.
Rating: 
Summary: an over-blown story redeemed by passionate writing...
Review: It always makes me feel bad to critise a novel when, as in the case of 'Brick Lane' by Monica Ali, the author has placed her heart and soul into every word. This colourful story of Bangladeshi-Engish cultural blending is certainly passionate. However if it weren't for this passion the book would be a dud; it attempts to cover way too much ground (drugs, infidelity, inter-religious issues, inter-cultural issues, Bangladeshi folklore, etc). By mid-way I wasn't sure the whether author knew where she was going with 'Brick Lane'. Less would have been a lot more. As for the story itself, it is about a young Bangladeshi woman and her husband (from an arranged marriage) who settle in an east London council flat. Both of them have difficulties maintaining their Islamic values in this very foreign country, with their children seemingly suffering even more. The author does a fine job in describing the heartache of these Bangladeshi families who are most often trapped in their own homes, afraid to leave. However as the story progresses the author, as I explain above, losses focus. And this reader gradually lost interest. Yet thanks to Monica Ali I think I understand my east London neighbours a bit better. Bottom line: Monica Ali's love of Bangladesh and London permeate 'Brick Lane'. This alone makes it an impressive debut.
Rating:
Summary: How it feels to be a Muslim woman in the big world
Review: A peek at a Bangaladeshi female immigrant's experience in the big wide world of London is what Ali provides us readers in Brick Lane. Raised as the docile and obedient daughter, Nazneen accepts an arranged marriage to an old man who takes her from Bangladesh to a Bangladeshi community in London. There, for the first time, she comes in contact with (or at least observes) the freedoms of Western women in The Land of Opportunity. Within the tight Bangaladeshi community, author Ali gives us all degrees of the immigrant experience through Nazneen's eyes. This unsparing look into a world of suppression that few of us can imagine is very gracefully rendered.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it, too.
Review: Add my voice to the chorus of praise for Monica Ali's Brick Lane. I especially enjoyed the way she stayed focused on Nazneen's life, but also deftly expanded the story -- through time, with memories of her family; and through space, with letters from her sister in Bangladesh.
The parting of Nazneen and her hapless husband was done very well: her genuine affection for Chanu and his acknowledgement of his own failure were shown with great delicacy, in very moving language.
Rating:
Summary: Lends Itself Most to the Female Reader
Review: While "BRICK LANE" is neither feminist nor anti-male by any means, my wife and I (having both read it) agree that it lends itself more to the female reader. It is not that I did not find the writer a gifted author or find the story interesting, but the main character felt emotionally detached to me (talking from the male prospective) yet my wife was able to connect with the character. We found similar reactions in our library book group (men not relating to the character emotionally as well as female readers). It is a book that men and women will experience differently, as opposed to some of the books we have agreed upon as "great" in terms of mutual appeal and experience (SECRET LIFE OF BEES, MY FRACTURED LIFE, and THE DA VINCI CODE).
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Summary: Wonderfully Portrayed! ^_^
Review: This review is coming from a American Muslim Bengali's perspective, and I've got to say that the book captured the very essence of many Muslim Bengali Immigrants here in Michigan. The author did a great job in capturing the Bengali traditions and the clash they had upon the Islamic religion. I consider myself more of a American Muslim than a Bengali, having never placed foot on Bangladesh once in my lifetime. The fact that Monica Ali did not distinguish the actions taken by the "mulla" and Nazneen as being extremely forbidden by Islam rather than just a "sin", irritates me. Monica does not have to further her research on the Bengali culture, rather she should base her research on the misconceptions Bengali's have regarding their religion and culture clash (touching the feet of elders for their blessings is hindu-derived, whereas many "Muslim" Bengalis follow suit, it is strictly forbidden by Islam to bow to any one other than the Almighty). Her conception of the citizens of Dhaka vs those of Sylhet is very true. Being from a Sylheti family, I can feel the pressure without having ever being there. Although she writes from a British perspective, the story she conjures into being, can(possibly already has numerous times) take place in the streets of Hamtramck and Detroit, Michigan today!
Rating: 
Summary: thank you ZERO stars Reviewer b/c 1 is the lowest option
Review: I don't know much about Bangladesh culture or what it's literature should portray. I do know that this author received a wealth of hype when the book is filled with "cliche after cliche". Sorry Monica. I do believe there is some talent there. But if you don't know the culture you are writing about, do extensive research, research, research. Perhaps your characters might have been more authentic if you, yourself, really knew/know the culture. Do you? I don't feel you do--at all---nor do I feel that whatever research you did helped you know enough. I don't know about Bangladesh culture, but I do know cliched, super fast, quickly rushed writing and poor research. I hope your next book lends to your readers a lot more of what you do know. Brick Lane is not terrible, but it's too darn formula-ic, wrought with passages that really don't say anything about the characters other than that they are A,B,C,D'ish.
Rating:
Summary: "1 star" rating b/c "0 star" is not an option
Review: Monica Ali may not be much of a writer but if you are a struggling author trying to scheme your way into the publishing industry, you will do well to read this book and see how a pro does it.
Ali has crafted a rather tedious tale of a young woman's pseudo independence from the tyranny of Asian cultural repression. The message of her book is perhaps this (if there is one): For everything that is dysfunctional and self-destructively narrow-minded, look to the East (and the people from the East living in the West). For enlightenment and freedom (of wearing sweat shirts all day), look towards the island kingdom, England. Her novel even ends with words to the effect that 'Anything is possible in England' (subtlety is not Ali's strong suit when it comes to sucking up). She chooses to forget that these english enlightened - famed for their gentility, wisdom and above all else good manners - were the same colonnizers who cut off the thumbs of muslim weavers in the Indian sub-continent to promote fabrics from Manchester, but let's not dig up the past.
Ali has used every conceivable ploy in her book to successfully attract the gleeful attention of the western literary sphere. She has outlined her characters according to perfect stereotypes. the doormat wife, the pot-bellied loser of a husband, the renegade, morally corrupt children, the nosey neighbors - cliches galore... even the lover that her young, apathetic protagonist takes appears as if on cue when needed. Their love making is so contrived that it reads like a 13-year-old's red-faced, hormonal imagination running wild.
now for factual accuracy: in her book kids run through man-high rice stalks in Bangladesh. This may be Ali's futuristic visions of Bangladeshi progress running away with her, because as far as we know rice "stalk" does not grow man-high. May be she meant jute??
nazneen's sister (haseena) writes letters to her from Bangladesh in some sort of pidgin english. i failed to grasp the point of that. is she writing in english? how? what kind of education does she have? why would you write to your sister in english anyway? is she writing in Bangla? then why is her language so poor - one can understand bad spelling but her sentences at least should make sense!
Anyway, moving on, in these letters she mentions characters in bangladesh with english names. well, ok.. perhaps there are some people in Bangladesh who have foreign names, but one character named "Betty" would be in serious trouble due to the obscene meaning of her name in the native language.
In one of her letters (designed to paint a hideous picture of what life is like in barbaric dhaka society) haseena compares a color of some clothing to that of a "ripe peach". Peach does not grow in Bangladesh. Nor is it imported like certain other fruits.
enough nit picking. turth be told - it is a shallow little novel with no such thing as character development and reeking of bad research. Ali chooses to write about a people and a country she knows nothing about. Perhaps because she knew if she packed in enough sensational snippets of third world country barbarism, she would have her fifteen minutes. And I bet she has.
I have been reading reviews of her 'accomplished' writing but I must say that she hides her talent well. If you are not the keen-eyed, highly sophisticated (read: british) editors of Granta, you might entirely miss it. Like I did.Waiting to see what the author has up your sleeve next. There is only one Bangladesh, you see. How many times can she sell it short?
Rating: 
Summary: Torn between two worlds
Review: In American culture, Nazneen, the Bangladeshi protagonist of Ali's debut novel, might be called passive aggressive. When displeased with her husband, she balls his dirty socks up and puts them back in the drawer. Or lets the razor slip when she cuts his corns, drawing blood. Not that he notices. Chanu, like many busy, ineffectual men, hasn't a clue. Nazneen lives her life by the precepts of her mother's favorite story of her: "How You Were Left to Your Fate." She was stillborn, then breathed but refused the nipple. Her mother refused medical help, family advice. Instead, she waited. God would decide. In the first chapter, Nazneen's path is charted: "What could not be changed must be borne. And since nothing could be changed, everything had to be borne. This principle ruled her life. It was mantra, fettle, and challenge. So that, at the age of thirty-four, after she had been given three children and had one taken away, when she had a futile husband and had been fated a young and demanding lover, when for the first time she could not wait for the future to be revealed but had to make it for herself, she was as startled by her own agency as an infant who waves a clenched fist and strikes itself upon the eye." The story begins with Nazneen's arranged marriage at 18, after her sister Hasina's shameful elopement, to a man living in London. Ali, herself born in Bangladesh, skillfully conveys the loneliness and bewilderment of a village girl in a block of flats teeming with immigrants. Chanu wants her to live a traditional indoor life, though she has none of the traditional family support. She keeps her feelings to herself, finds ways to obey the spirit, if not the letter of his will. Her best friend is loud, cigarette-smoking Razia who defies respectability and speaks her mind out loud. Then her sister's "love match" collapses, and Hasina flees her abusive husband. A woman alone in Bangladesh is by definition in danger. Nazneen is desperate for her husband to act, but he does not. This bitter time, and her small revolts, further shape her marriage and Nazneen's inner turmoil is a secret from her husband, fostering larger betrayals. Letters from Hasina, though they sometimes read like a device for conveying the growing turmoil in Bangladesh, and a woman at the mercy of her patriarchal Muslim culture, further underscore the divide in Nazneen's marriage. But Chanu, though he may be an intellectual dreamer, incapable of action, is a good-hearted, kind man who loves his wife. Eventually, her daughters Westernized and rebellious, Nazneen gives in to passion, taking a lover from among the burgeoning radicals in the community - young people born to a Bengal culture in a new country. Torn between Western temptations and family traditions, beset by racist resentment and fear, they cleave to Islamic fundamentalism in a complex mix of anger, pride and preservation. When, at last, she asks Karim why he chose her, he says she is "the real thing," a village girl who doesn't dance in short skirts or wear the burkha and "ARGUE." Ali's eloquent, deceptively simple prose underscores the complexity of her world. Her dialogue is pitch perfect and her characters express themselves equally strongly in their silences, their gestures, their grooming, and their posturing. Her multi-faceted portrayal of post-September 11 reactions segues into a personal resolution that remains in doubt until the last page. A thoughtful, involving and beautiful debut.
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