Life Isnt All Ha Ha Hee Hee - Softcover

Meera Syal

3.59

1,858 ratings by Goodreads

9781862300521: Life Isnt All Ha Ha Hee Hee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862300526 ISBN 13: 9781862300521

Publisher: Black Swan, 2000

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Book by MEERA SYAL

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Review:

Meera Syal's second novel features a trio of close and somewhat unlikely childhood friends. Sunita, a former law student and activist, has married her university sweetheart Akash, and is settled into a life of overweight, underappreciated motherhood. Tania is a raven-maned beauty who's rejected marriage and anything traditionally Asian for a high-flying TV career and a compliant Indophile boyfriend. And then there's Chila. Innocent, kind, funny Chila, with her simple soul and her glass animal collection, has just, to everyone's amazement, snared Deepak--the "most eligible bachelor within a twenty-mile radius."

A comedienne and actress as well as the author of the prize-winning Anita and Me, Syal expertly steers her characters through what we might call middle youth--that emotional roller coaster of an age when the real growing up is done. Everywhere her trademark wit and sensitivity are on display. There's the inevitable bitching at the wedding: "Now the sister is howling. I'd howl if I had a moustache like hers..." Then, after the ceremony, come the traditional tears:

Tissue-clutching matriarchs reattached themselves to harrumphing husbands, reaffirming their bonds to each other and the watching world. Single girls clucked in feverish groups, high on the drama of the departure, tossing their fancy dupattas at the single men, torn between the horror and the longing of it all.

What comes after that, alas, is infidelity and envy and betrayal. True to its stoic title, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee encompasses not only the strengths but the limits of female friendship. Yet the author retains her sense of humor and cross-cultural irony to the very end. One final note: if you're pregnant and have set your heart on natural childbirth, avoid pages 72 and 73. Or else book that elective cesarean and painkilling cocktail. Now. --Lisa Gee

About the Author:

Meera Syal is an actress and writer. She has written a number of successful TV and film scripts including Bhaji on the Beach and the multi-award-winning My Sister Wife, in which she also starred. She co-writes and stars in BBC2's hit comedy series Goodness Gracious Me, and was awarded the MBE in 1998. Her first novel, Anita and Me, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize, it has also been made into a successful film. Life Ins't All Ha Ha Hee Hee, her second novel, was acclaimed by critics ('Funny and sharp' Independent; 'Extremely funny, wonderfully insightful' Sunday Express).

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