Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Southall is a section of London where Punjabi people live, and it's a lot like home in India. That means it's a conservative area, and girls who were raised in London have trouble because they're labeled as "modern", which is synonymous with "bad" in Southall.
That's how it is for 22 year-old Nikki, who dropped out of law school and tends bar. She has her own apartment, rather than living with her family, and she scorns her sister's decision to have an arranged marriage. But she feels adrift, so she signs up to teach a creative writing class at a temple in Southall. Maybe this will help her figure out her career.
Her boss, Kulwinder, is a hard ass who is grieving the death of her daughter Maya. She sees a lot of Maya in Nikki, but that doesn't warm her up. When Nikki finds that the handful of women who attend her class are widows who want to share erotic stories, she's torn between wanting to fulfill their wishes and displeasing Kulwinder.
Their stories leak out into the public and gain popularity in Southall and beyond. It's exciting to finally see Punjabi people in these types of stories, and it is liberating the women. Nikki is worried sick that a conservative faction of men called The Brothers will make life difficult for them, maybe even violent, if they're found out. But as she learns more about the senseless deaths of young women in Southall, she presses on until she learns enough to make a difference, even if it puts her in tremendous danger.
General consensus: I read this pretty quickly but I wouldn't say it was gripping. I was surprised that I didn't have a deeper interest in the story. I expected to care more about the characters but if I lost the book at any point, I would have shrugged and moved on. I wanted it to be something I deeply loved but I just thought it was good.
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