Review: The Wedding Season by Su Dharmapala

Culture, tradition and chick-lit come together in The Wedding Season, an occasionally bittersweet and sometimes hilarious story set in Melbourne during the Sri Lankan wedding season. Shani is thirty-two, has a successful career and is happily single, much to the disgust of her mother. But when Shani's horoscope predicts that now is the best time for marriage, her mother goes into over-drive, setting her up with one hundred different men. All of them prove to be unsuitable, some of them hilariously so, but a tragic event is to come, one which changes everything ...

Author Su Dharmapala does a commendable job of writing a story that crosses cultures and traditions and offers a sympathetic glimpse at mother-daughter relationships, as well as some other family drama. There are some truly comical moments--such as the way that the author hints that a herbal love potion intended for a different woman was responsible for bringing together actors Hugh Jackman and Deborah Lee Furness--while other parts of the story, such as what happens to Shani's best friend Amani and how that tragedy eventually changes the course of Shani's life. The moral? Despite all of our best efforts, life can be unpredictable and we cannot control what will happen to us. The ending was perfect for the subject matter.

Recommended.

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