The Groom to Have Been

Though I enjoyed this book, it does not stand out as a phenomenal book that I would recommend rereading. I found Nasr to be a complicated yet still enjoyable protagonist. (I would have been curious, however, to see this story with a female protagonist, or from a first-person narrative.) The plot unravels slowly but it's often vague, hidden in a tiny paragraph or stuck in a metaphor.

I think this book benefits much more from being read aloud; I had the fortune of being able to meet Saher Alam at a university book signing, and she also read excerpts from the novel. I think that because of its slow, developed place, The Groom to Have Been is best contemplated and absorbed slowly as well.