Dream lover

Imaginary Men - Anjali Banerjee (Downtown Press, 2005)

Yet another book that mysteriously made its way onto my "to read" list. But it seems right up my alley. Once upon a time I was reading a lot of South Asian-inflected fiction, and chick lit is my specialty. But to be honest, I'm still not quite sure how I felt about this one.

The premise totally works - Lina is a matchmaker (one of those professions I really only hear about in novels) and in the eyes of her Indian family, an old maid now that she's crossed 30. And to avoid a relative's meddling matchmaking, she claims to be engaged. And hijinks ensue. Mainly because she uses the name of the hot (but terribly conservative) man she just met, and because her family gets SO excited and demands to meet him, and because she's still trying to come to terms with the death of her former fiance.

The plot moves quickly, and I plowed through this book during finals week like it was candy. All good. But I found myself wondering what role Lina's fiance played in the book. People seemed blithely inconsiderate of her loss, and I couldn't quite understand why. And then we have Lina's imaginary man, who is either a)aforementioned lost love; b)her fake new lover; c)the new man she's actually falling for; d)some weird amalgamation. The answer is e)all of the above, but I somehow wanted more from him.

Am I too demanding? Is this why I'm still unmarried?

On the other hand, I really appreciated the ending, which offered a richer, more real portrait of how "happily ever after" doesn't just happen.