“Unmarriageable” by Soniah Kamal is a modern day re-telling of Pride and Prejudice set in Pakistan. It tells the story of Alys Binat and her sisters dealing with pressures from the mother and society to get married. They grow up in a culture where woman are married while still in high school and some don’t even finish school, where a woman being married is more important than her having a career, where marriage is everything and finding love is not as important as marrying a wealthy man.

To be honest, I have not read Pride and Prejudice, but I am familiar with the story. I thought that Kamal did a good job of keeping to the story, but adding some modern twists. The way she kept the names as close to the originals was very cute in my opinion. Her description of the culture in Pakistan was very well done as well.

I didn’t go into this book thinking that I would like it as much as I ended up liking it. It started off slightly slow, but when they got to the wedding festivities it picked up, and I was hooked! Although I knew how the book would turn out, I wanted to keep reading especially to see how Alys and Darsee’s story unfolded. I was routing for them to get together the entire time I was reading. I would definitely recommend this book especially to anyone who loves Pride and Prejudice.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballentine for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.