Rating: 
Summary: Flawed Work of Popular Fiction
Review: I don't read a lot of fiction, but the review made "For Matrimonial Purposes" sound interesting so I decided to read it. This book is written in first person and the narrator, Anju, is the main character. As the story goes, Anju travels back and forth from New York to India, visiting family and looking for a husband. She has decided she wants to keep the Indian custom of marrying an Indian man she barely knows, but who has gained her parents' approval. When she is visiting India and describing life there, the book is interesting, but when she is in New York describing her job and her shallow, trendy co-workers the book is dull. The New York parts felt like cliche-ridden filler so I just skimmed them.
There is one scene where Anju's mother is visiting a swami and despite the fact that Anju was not at the meeting, she describes it as if she had been present. This sticks out like a sore thumb. I know about "omniscient voice", but I don't see how the main character can be omniscient about scenes she didn't witness unless she is God or unless this is a fantasy novel. Where was the editor? This is just sloppy!
In the last few pages of the book, Anju finally meets the man destined to become her husband. His character is not developed, the reader does not know him, so it's difficult to care that she has found someone and is getting married.
The book is peppered with Indian words that are not defined. You have to guess at what they mean. Maybe the author assumed only Indians and Indian-Americans would read her book?
Not a great work of literature since it lacks depth and artistic prose, but interesting for it's authentic portrayal of Indian customs and culture.
Rating: 
Summary: An Absolutely Delightful Read
Review: I dove into For Matrimonial Purposes and could barely put it down for meals, exercise and sleep. Kavita is a gifted story teller who invites readers into the transcultural worlds of arranged marriage and feminist inspired independence. The book offers a studied glimpse into the insular world of the Bombay upper middle classes as they jet set around the world whilst seeking the culture-bound security of marrying someone of known origins. I loved being witness to the very subtle manipulations her protagonist devises to both engage an independent self AND honor her parents and her Indianess.
Rating:
Summary: fun read but very classist - spoiled, superficial heroine
Review: I enjoyed reading this, but would categorize it as fluffy. As an avid reader of South Asian fiction, I was glad to find it and found it entertaining. However, I was somewhat put off by Anju's narrow outlook. She seems to take her money and the accoutrements that come with it for granted. While she's grown up with servants, I would have expected that living in America would have changed her habit of treating them as if their sole purpose is to cook and clean, etc. for her. I found this attitude of entitlement frustrating, and to me it created a one-dimensional character. The book felt like a soap opera, and while it was worth reading for an hour or two, if you want more reality and depth, I would recommend Divakaruni or Malladi.
Rating: 
Summary: embarassing!
Review: I find it hard to believe that Kavita Daswani found a publisher to print and sell this nonsence. Given the tremendous work (female)Indian writers have made to reach mainstream Western readers coupled with the brilliant writers out there (Arundhati Roy, Jumpa Lahiri, Samina Ali) why does Daswani go out there and bore us with diary like drivel. This wasn't even Bridget Jones meets Bollywood, if that might have been the intention as there wasn't even subtle humor thrown into her writing. The saddest part (and an underlying theme) was the stupid snobbery that filled the pages. Was Daswani expecting us to be impressed with idle mentions of the big cars, jewellery and flying first class on Air India.......? The winning sentence had to be:".....as we slurped the remains of our kulfi falooda from small sterling-silver cups". Did we need to know this useless piece of information? The book was filled with this rubbish, so much so, 50 pages into the book the writer came across as a spoiled, witless, condescending brat who deserved not to have a friend, never mind a husband. I think there might have been subtler ways to introduce the Western reader to the culture of arranged marriages rather than this flip, arrogant, immature garbage.
Having packed her rubbish and moved to the US her life there isn't one iota smarter.....She hangs out with equally silly single people where life provides such challenges as what to wear, a visit to the shrink and calls to her mother. Nobody has a lovelife including her gay colleague beacause "he's as bent as on old one dollar bill" (!!!!!!).
Ms Daswani, why didn't you spend your (many) free hours in Mubai working in a slum rather than polishing the displays at one of your father's numerous stores? Perhaps then you might have been able to put your life into perspective and worry about something other than yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Find
Review: I found this book because someone had given it to my grandmother and she hadn't had time to read it. Once I picked it up, I wasn't able to put it down. I felt like a fly on the wall of an Indian household - a secret visitor in someone elses world! What a wonderful read!
Rating:
Summary: 'Matrimonial' bliss ruined by final pages
Review: I like to torment myself by reading chick-lit. Every time I swear I'll never pick up another one somebody recommends a book they swear actually lives up to the hype and I'll devote a few hours to that rather than, say, The Iliad. I wouldn't mind if the books actually wound up being good but I am so sick of the constant repetition of 'sassy, shallow heroine in the big city looks for love while furthering her journalism career' (Why do all single girls in books work for magazines or newspapers? Are minimum wage girls not worthy of love or just not interesting enough to write a book about?) and this book made for a nice, only slightly different change. Because it's set around Indian culture, the fact that someone's life can be made so miserable by virtue of not having a man makes complete sense for once.Highly readable and only nominally insulting, it revolves almost entirely around not meeting up with the expectations of society and all the emptiness that comes from not fitting in, even when you're not sure if it's what you really want to do or not. Anju's struggle to choose between accepting her place in a man-centric culture or to continue to hold out for something better actually made me very sympathetic towards her, not an easy feat with these novels. She does tend to see-saw from one extreme (running off to New York) to the other (ditching her career for a month so her mother can find her a man) which left me wondering if her problems weren't something a little counseling and some strong anti-depressants couldn't fix. Just as things start to look up and you you think Anju has finally found herself the author decides it's more important this book sells rather than makes sense and so shoehorns in a last minute 'happy ever after' to appeal to the lowest commmon denominator. The problem is it's blatantly tacked on and all the internal issues you think Anju has dealt with for good all come back and make her look weak and stupid. The guy she hooks up with treats her the same way her parents do and she reacts accordingly (ditches her new life to start all over again just to land a husband); she overcomes one stifling, controlling relationship only to trade it in for another. But apparently that's okay, because she gets a beautiful wedding out of the deal. The whole story of sorting herself out is ditched in order to make the man, the parents, and presumably the typical chick lit audience happy. It rings completely false and only serves to make you annoyed at being so obviously pandered to.
Rating:
Summary: Can totally relate with the book!!!
Review: I picked up this book from a bookstore in Mumbai on a whim and I was pleasantly surprised when I read it. It surpassed my expectations and the more I read it, the more I got involved with the characters of the book. The central character of the book - Anju is so much like the new-age, evolved Indian woman. Independent, intelligent and will not settle for second best. The book is about a one-woman search for the perfect Indian husband. The story is spread over two continents - India and USA. I could not put down the book, till I did not find out what sort of mate Anju finally landed up with... Kudos to Kavita Daswani for writing about such amazing characters...
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing!
Review: I read that this book was sold for a lot of money and was a great story, great writing et cetera. I was disappointed on all counts. The story was boring and I had no sympathy for Anju. She was a rich, spoilt girl who was constantly looking for a husband, allowing her parents to run her life until magically she decides that she wants to go to America. I couldn't see how the transformation took place. How Anju turned from being an insecure woman to all of a sudden wanting to go to a foreign country all on her own. And ultimately, when she meets the love of her life it is all too easy. The writing was plain, boring and insipid. Sentences like, "Bold and the Beautiful was my favorite show, so I sat down to watch who Ridge would sleep with tonight" filled the book. I wish the writer had infused some flavor into her writing because this was quite bland. This felt like a Harlequin romance novel packaged as a literary novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Glimpse into reality....
Review: I really enjoyed Kavita Daswani's - 'For matrimonial purposes'.It is insightful, very realistic and I couldn't put it down! That being said, I agree with an earlier reviewer who said that the book was full of indian colloquisms and words [ literally hindi and sindhi words written in English] which for someone with a non- Indian/Indophile background are almost impossible to decipher. South Asians will identify most strongly with the book, but it still is a good view into an immigrant's lifestyle and especially the societal pressures of 'A suitable marriage' that South Asian women universally feel.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful, fun, and enjoyable
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Throughout the story she was able to show how conflicted life can be for women who know enough to be "modern", but still would like to honor the family and be "traditional". Through her descriptions of color, food, jewelery, and clothing I was able to immerse myself into her culture. Read this book for a light, entertaining insight into traditional Indian ways.
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