Marriage of a Thousand Lies

A Novel

By: SJ Sindu

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Lakshmi, called Lucky, is an unemployed millennial programmer. She likes to dance and have a drink or two, and she makes art on commission. Fifty bucks gets you high-resolution digital images of anything you want (orcs, mermaids, cos-playing couples in sexy boudoir scenes) and a nice frameable print. Lucky's husband, Krishna, is an editor for a greeting card company. Both are secretly gay. They present their conservative Sri Lankan American families with a heterosexual front while each dates on the side.

When Lucky's grandmother has a nasty fall, Lucky returns to her mother's home to act as caretaker and unexpectedly reconnects with her childhood best friend and first lover, Nisha. Nisha has agreed to an arranged marriage with a man she doesn't know but finds herself attracted to her old friend. The attraction is mutual, and Lucky tries to save Nisha from entering a marriage based on a lie. But does Nisha really want to be saved? And what does Lucky want, anyway? To live openly means that Lucky would lose most of the community she was born into - a community she loves, an irreplaceable home. Lucky, an outsider no matter what choices she makes, is pushed to the breaking point.

©2017 SJ Sindu (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Eh, not awful, not great

I struggled with this book. I felt like this book couldn't decide a lot of basic things about the characters, about the plot, about the relationships, about the message. All of the characters were so vapid and childish, except maybe the grandmother. I never connected with any of them and was increasingly frustrated with the immaturity and whining. Overall I was glad it was over and felt very eh about the whole thing.

Lovely story of Real Life

Beautiful, heartfelt, gut wrenching story! The story of expectations versus reality will make you reflect on every societal norm you believe to be true!

Great book but the reader was not fantastic

I loved this book! Beautiful.
I really didn’t like the reader, however. She was overly melodramatic and I don’t think the story benefited from her dramatic input. She was pretty awful. Almost ruined the whole book.

A joy to read

This was a very moving, emotional, and joyous book with excellent narration. It was an interesting look into Sri Lankan culture and how life is for a gay woman in that culture. I look forward to reading future books by this author.

Am I the only person who struggled to finish?

I liked the premise and I felt like the book touched on a lot of important topics like the overlap of being brown and gay. But I am struggling with this one. It feels slow and depressing. I am about 2/3s. I think I will leave and come back to this one.

Heartbreakingly Good

I usually go for the happy ending kind of love story. But I decided to give this a chance and I am happy I did. SPOILER.......although it is an awakening of the main character at the end and she doesn't get the girl and her struggle is real. I enjoyed the journey. As an Hispanic American, I can relate to the close ties within the Indian culture and traditions that play heavy on our life choices. So I was able to relate a lot. And can I say the narrator was OUTSTANDING. Absolutely one of the best I've heard so far. All in all, I encourage anyone to give this amazing book a chance.

Love love love this novel!

This novel is soooo good. The story, the performance, everything. Does a great job capturing on view of queer women’s culture. I can’t speak to how well it capture Sri Lankan culture, though I loved hearing about it. I think SJ Sindu might be a new favorite author for me. 😍

I hate it when the bad guys win

A very sad story about two young women whose destiny is controlled by their parents. One breaks away, the other will not. Sad throughout as told from the pov of the girl who broke away. She is sad though out and ultimately loses. I don’t recommend it unless you like sad stories that make you angry at a weak adult who at 27 years old refuses to choose her own path. I admit I don’t understand a culture that believes in arranged marriages over love and anything non traditional.