Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club Pick A lively, sexy, and thought-provoking East-meets-West story about community, friendship, and women’s lives at all ages—a spicy and alluring mix of Together Tea and Calendar Girls.Every woman has a secret life . . .Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd … at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a “creative writing” course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community.
Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind.
As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community’s “moral police.” But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.
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A totally original and magical ride through the culture of the Punjabi’s living in London. When a young women gets tricked in to teaching a group of Punjabi widows how to read and write (she thinks she is there to teach them creative writing) she gets way more than she bargained for when the women decide to use the time telling erotic stories. Full of humor and brilliantly observed characters this is a book for anybody that is open to seeing a world they may not be familiar with but will certainly be richer for glimpsing.
Great book. Loved it.
This was really a lot of fun, not really erotic, more exotic I’d say. Fun to see inside the Sikh community!
Hard to keep track of all the different characters as most were mentioned often but were not developed. The story was marginally interesting and somewhat original but didn’t feel special, like a book I couldn’t put down or would recommend to friends. Meh.
unlike anything I’ve read before, fun and naughty.
I was not bothered by the sex…but did it add to the story? I did love the characters and the resolutions at book end. Was curious why it has been hyped as much as it has been.
Very unusual and unpredictable. Although parts of the story were erotic, the main gist was a look into the lives of immigrant East Indian women in their enclave in London. These women are contrasted with a modern Indian girl, Nicki who was their writing teacher.
A clever, funny, enjoyable story — a departure from the usual story of immigrants in their new countries. I liked it!
The most interesting part of the book was the description of the traditions and social mores of the Punjabi people living in London.