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The Marriage Clock
Cover of The Marriage Clock
The Marriage Clock
A Novel
Borrow Borrow

Named one of Pop Sugar's Best Books to Put in your Beachbag this summer and one of the best books of July.

A Booktrib "Romance to get you in the swing for Wedding Season" of 2019

A Book Riot "Five New Diverse Romantic Comedies"

Bustle's "21 new summer novels to spice up your summer reading"

To Leila Abid’s traditional Indian parents, finding a husband is as easy as match, meet, marry. Yes, she wants to marry, but after 26 years of singledom, even Leila is starting to get nervous. And to make matters worse, her parents are panicking, the neighbors are talking, and she’s wondering, are her expectations just too high?

But for Leila, a marriage of arrangement clashes with her lifelong dreams of a Bollywood romance, where real love happens before marriage, not the other way around. So she decides it’s time to stop dreaming and start dating.

It’s an impossible mission of satisfying her parents’ expectations, while also fulfilling her own western ideals of love. But after a series of speed dates, blind dates, online dates and even ambush dates, the sparks just don’t fly! Now, with the marriage clock ticking, and her 3-month deadline looming in the horizon, Leila must face the consequences of what might happen if she doesn’t find “the one…”

Named one of Pop Sugar's Best Books to Put in your Beachbag this summer and one of the best books of July.

A Booktrib "Romance to get you in the swing for Wedding Season" of 2019

A Book Riot "Five New Diverse Romantic Comedies"

Bustle's "21 new summer novels to spice up your summer reading"

To Leila Abid’s traditional Indian parents, finding a husband is as easy as match, meet, marry. Yes, she wants to marry, but after 26 years of singledom, even Leila is starting to get nervous. And to make matters worse, her parents are panicking, the neighbors are talking, and she’s wondering, are her expectations just too high?

But for Leila, a marriage of arrangement clashes with her lifelong dreams of a Bollywood romance, where real love happens before marriage, not the other way around. So she decides it’s time to stop dreaming and start dating.

It’s an impossible mission of satisfying her parents’ expectations, while also fulfilling her own western ideals of love. But after a series of speed dates, blind dates, online dates and even ambush dates, the sparks just don’t fly! Now, with the marriage clock ticking, and her 3-month deadline looming in the horizon, Leila must face the consequences of what might happen if she doesn’t find “the one…”

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About the Author-
  • Zara Raheem received her MFA from California State University, Long Beach. She is the recipient of the James I. Murashige Jr. Memorial award in fiction and was selected as one of 2019's Harriet Williams Emerging Writers. She resides in Southern California where she teaches English and creative writing. The Marriage Clock is her first novel.

Reviews-
  • Kirkus

    May 15, 2019
    A South Asian Muslim woman who grew up in Los Angeles has three months to find a husband before her parents plan to arrange a marriage for her. Leila Abid is the American-born daughter of Indian parents who have been happily married for almost 30 years. At 26, nondrinking Leila has been enjoying her quiet routine--work, regular Tuesday night hangouts with her friends--and everything in her life has unfolded nicely. Even if she is still living with her parents. But when her parents announce that they will arrange her marriage because of her advanced age, she negotiates a three-month reprieve while she looks for a suitable Muslim man to marry who makes both her and her parents happy. She is not a traditional South Asian Muslim, and her American independence is not something she's willing to compromise on despite her interest in a grand Bollywood-esque love story, as she continually tells herself, her family, and her friends. Leila's thought processes as she grapples with who she is, who her parents are, and what it means to be a Muslim woman jostle for narrative attention in between a series of awkward and uncomfortable dates. The first half of the book is choppy and repetitive while Leila is in Los Angeles, but when she travels to India with her mother for a cousin's wedding, the story settles into itself and the lush heat, rich food, and sense of community that surrounds the three-day nuptials. Unfortunately, Leila's final decision packs little punch. Readers expecting a typical fairy-tale ending will be surprised.

    COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  • Library Journal

    June 14, 2019

    DEBUT Raheem's first novel features Indian American Muslim Leila Abid, age 26 and living with her parents. She's launched a teaching career, but her parents want her to complete her life with a spouse. Leila has always dreamed of a Bollywood-style romance and love before marriage, not after. She quickly decides that she cannot accept her parents completely arranging her marriage and gets them to agree to a three-month deadline before they step in and take the more traditional route for her. Leila sets off on a dating spree to find Mr. Right, using a variety of traditional and nontraditional methods including online dating apps for Muslim singles and even a matchmaker. The author portrays this experience in an authentic and at times funny and heartbreaking way, and Leila's struggles will speak to many. The ending may surprise some readers and make others applaud. VERDICT This charming and humorous novel will appeal to a wide audience and should be an excellent fit for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, 1/7/19.]--Kristen Stewart, Pearland Lib., Brazoria Cty. Lib. Syst., TX

    Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • Booklist

    June 1, 2019
    Leila Abid is smart, pretty, and in a job she loves. She is living in her parents' house as she figures out her life. On her twenty-sixth birthday, her parents surprise her with a stack of photos: possible future husbands for her. Although Leila does not consider her Indian Muslim parents to be conservative, they keep reminding her that she should be married by now. Initially bowing to their expectations, she agrees to their matchmaking, until a string of awkward encounters has her begging them for some time to find her own Bollywood love story. They give her three months, and then they will arrange her marriage. Leila's attempts are worse than her parents', and she has many hilariously bad dates. Though privileged, Leila starts out with an immature attitude, but after a family wedding in India, she begins to grow up and discover what she wants in life. Raheem's debut uses chick-lit tropes to smartly skewer modern ways of dating and to bring humor to more traditional South Asian ones. Recommended for all public-library collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

  • Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times bestselling author

    "An intimate and entertaining glimpse into the life of a young Muslim American woman whose family wants her married. Now! You'll want to read this in one sitting." — Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times bestselling author

    "Please cancel your weekend plans, because once you dive into The Marriage Clock, it'll be impossible to tear yourself away. This romantic and insightful book introduces us to Leila Abid, who's torn between her traditional parents trying to arrange her marriage and her own desire for agency." — Cosmopolitan

    "The Marriage Clock is a warm, funny debut novel about love, how we find it, and how we can keep it." — Popsugar

    "Zara Raheem's The Marriage Clock, however, takes a unique and charming look at the beliefs we hold in regard to love and marriage. And that's precisely why readers should be adding this novel to their August TBR piles." — Culturess

    "Raheem's debut uses chick-lit tropes to smartly skewer modern ways of dating and to bring humor to more traditional South Asian ones." — Booklist

    "So fresh and charming and fun! I adored being in Leila's world, from her girls' nights with her friends to her conversations with her loving, pressuring parents to her many first dates. What a joy to read." — Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth

    "Zara Raheem's The Marriage Clock is a unique, beautiful story about a woman coming to accept herself – and the notion that maybe marriage isn't everything." — All About Romance

    "Raheem dedicates the book to every woman who has ever been told she wasn't enough. In the face of ubiquitous cultural traditions that measure a woman's worth by her marriageability, Leila's journey shows us that the true measure of a woman's worth is that she values herself." — BookTrib

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