Brick Lane is a captivating read that brings the immigrant milieu of East London to vibrant life. With great poignancy, Monica Ali illuminates a foreign world; her well-developed characters pull readers along on a deeply psychological, almost spiritual journey.

Through the eyes of two Bangladeshi sisters—the plain Nazneen and the prettier Hasina—we see the divergent paths of the contemporary descendants of an ancient culture. Hasina elopes to a "love marriage," and young Nazneen, in an arranged marriage, is pledged to a much older man living in London.

Ali's skillful narrative focuses on Nazneen's stifling life with her ineffectual husband, who keeps her imprisoned in a city housing project filled with immigrants in varying degrees of assimilation. However, Ali reveals a bittersweet tension between the "two kinds of love" Nazneen and her sister experience—that which begins full and overflowing, only to slowly dissipate, and another which emerges like a surprise, growing unexpectedly over years of faithful commitment.

Both of these loves have their own pitfalls: Hasina's passionate romance crumbles into domestic violence, and Nazneen's marriage never quite reaches a state of wedded bliss.

This splendid novel is about journeys both external and internal, where the marvelous and the terrifying spiral together, offering a unique perspective on fate and self-discovery.