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Much Ado about Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin

9 reviews

jess_always_reading's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

This was a great story! The majority of the present day parts take place over a weekend or so with the rest happening as tantalizing flashbacks that slowly reveal the character's backstories. As a Torontonian myself it was also really cool to read a book so anchored in our city and in the Muslim community. Jalaluddin doesn't shy away from depicting character flaws and balancing both the wonderful and the challenging aspects of growing up in a tight-knit immigrant community.

A beatiful story of being true to yourself and your community, of breaking patterns, and of the different types of love.

10/10 would recommend.

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kelly_e's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Title: Much Ado about Nada
Author: Uzma Jalaluddin
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.00
Pub Date: June 13, 2023

I received a complimentary eARC from HarperCollins Canada via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #Gifted

T H R E E • W O R D S

Modern • Unexpected • Uneven

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Nada Syed is stuck. On the cusp of thirty, she’s still living at home with her brothers and parents in the Golden Crescent neighbourhood of Toronto, resolutely ignoring her mother’s unsubtle pleas to get married already. While Nada has a good job as an engineer, it’s a far cry from realizing her start-up dreams for her tech baby, Ask Apa, the app that launched with a whimper instead of a bang because of a double-crossing business partner. Nothing in her life has turned out the way it was supposed to, and Nada feels like a failure. Something needs to change, but the past is holding on too tightly to let her move forward.

Nada’s best friend Haleema is determined to pry her from her shell…and what better place than at the giant annual Muslim conference held downtown, where Nada can finally meet Haleema’s fiancé, Zayn. And did Haleema mention Zayn’s brother Baz will be there?

What Haleema doesn’t know is that Nada and Baz have a past—some of it good, some of it bad and all of it secret. At the conference, that past all comes hurtling at Nada, bringing new complications and a moment of reckoning.

💭 T H O U G H T S

I was granted an ARC of Much Ado about Nada, however, it took me nearly a year to pick it up. I don't think the premise of this novel appealed to me as much as some of this author's other books have, yet I still wanted to give it a try. I have never read Persuasion, so the fact this is a loose retelling didn't really impact my experience.

The writing and flow made this an easy second chance romance read set in both the present and past timelines. Uzma Jalaluddin is fantastic at creating fierce female main characters and she stays the course in this one. Nada is faced with balancing cultural and familial expectations with her own personal hopes and dreams.

When it comes to the romance, it is the past timeline that does the majority of the heavy lifting, and in my opinion this is a downfall of the book. Every time I returned to the present timeline, I was withdrawn from their relationship. To the point, that I don't think I would even classify this as a romance per se.

Much Ado about Nada was enjoyable in the moment, but not necessarily a memorable story.
Certainly not my favourite from this author, yet I appreciate her taking classic stories and putting modern and diverse twists on them. I will continue to pick up the stories that she writes and recommend them to anyone looking for romance with depth.

📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• Persuasion
• the second chance trope

⚠️ CW: bullying, toxic friendship, sexism, misogyny, ableism, mental illness, cursing, hate crime, Islamophobia, pregnancy, injury/injury detail, body shaming, gaslighting, sexual content

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"There's nothing more human than being wrong," she said quietly. "Or being persuaded one way and then regretting your decision. I would argue that learning to live with that regret is the most human thing of all."

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relin's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

The structure of the book was really neat, flashbacks that were hinted at in the previous chapter in very clear ways that the knowledge in the flashback changes the reading of the conversation. It was fun to see Shakespeare and Muslim culture be intertwined!

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onegalonelife27's review

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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spinesinaline's review against another edition

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hopeful mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Thanks to HarperCollins Canada for an ARC of this one. I was very intrigued in both a Toronto setting and a loose retelling of Persuasion, but it felt like it really missed the mark on the second. It is a compelling story: the main character is struggling in her career after a devastating theft by her business partner, and now has to face her ever-successful ex-beau.

The part that really brought this down for me was the love interest. Persuasion is in part a story of young lovers separated by family and finding each other again as adults, with all the maturity that this passage of time has brought them. This book has some of that except the love interest has none of the maturity. The main character has a lot of valid reasons and feelings that her young self expresses and I wish we could’ve seen other characters validate this as well, especially around her concerns of sexist treatment. Instead, she’s made to feel wrong and somehow the villain in this relationship, with no responsibility placed on her ex/love interest. This book got so close to some real revelations but ultimately felt short in making this man some beloved fictional placeholder.

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lettuce_read's review

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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reads2cope's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Uzma Jalaluddin has done it again!!! I couldn't put this down. It dropped my jaw to the floor, made me tingle with every emotion, and kick my feet and scream into my pillow. The main characters were all so lovable and real, and I want spinoff books for all of Nada's friends.
As a Jane Austen inspired romance, this absolutely nailed the tension and longing that made the original second chance Persuasion so great!
At the same time, the issues of bullying and family obligations were handled with so much depth it was at times hard to read and very emotional.
The pace of this book was perfect, slowly revealing her past with Baz kept me on the edge of my seat without losing momentum in the present storyline.
My only large gripe with the book is that I wanted to see more Nada and Baz interactions, which ~yes~ is a great sign that I love the couple. However, the ending left me feeling conflicted

that they hadn't finished a deep conversation about their goals in life, making sure they were on the same page about what being together again meant. Their breakup was horrible, but also Nada was not wrong, and Sister Rusul was right to caution her to question how Baz would support Nada's dreams when he was being so flippant about her degree and their families. Baz wasn't ready to stay in one place, and Nada had different goals six years ago. If they had been able to communicate better, they might have taken life slower, going back to long-distance, and bringing their families into their lives. While the split might have been the necessary motivation for them to arrive where they ended up in this present, I wanted to see them better resolve their miscommunications of the past. A single line about them seeking the same counseling that Haleema and Zayn received would have put me more at ease, but I'll just imagine they did this on my own.
The storyline with Firdous also felt unresolved - had Baz actually considered her as a potential romantic partner? Did she realize the error of her faith in Haneef?

The Ayesha At Last easter eggs in this book were so delightful, too. Maybe it's time to reread until Jalaluddin publishes again...

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azrah786's review against another edition

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4.5

[This review can also be found on my BLOG]

**I was provided with an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

CW: bullying, misogyny, ableism, divorce, depression, minor sexual content, pregnancy
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Uzma Jalaluddin’s book are such a fun time and I think this one is my favourite book by her to date.

Much Ado About Nada has us returning to the Golden Crescent neighbourhood, this time following Nada, a single woman in her late 20s who is dragged to a Muslim conference by one of her friends for a “girl’s weekend” before said friend’s wedding. However, attending the conference has her stumbling upon aspects from her past that she has been sternly avoiding. One being the root cause to the failure of her entrepreneurial project “Ask Apa” and the other being Baz, the brother-in-law to be of her friend whom Nada has a secret history with..

I haven’t read Austen’s Persuasion, which this is said to be a loose retelling of or Much Ado About Nothing so I can’t really say much on that side of things but I enjoyed this book so much, I genuinely couldn’t put it down.

"Sometimes I worry you've allowed your sadness to become the biggest part of you. Whatever happened in the past is why you're afraid to take any chances now."

A big thing that I love about Jalaluddin’s storytelling is just how welcoming and homely it feels. You can expect a slice of life narrative with honest Muslim and desi rep, wholesome familial relationships and friendships, humour and of course a dash of drama. Whenever I pick up one of her books I just immediately feel a part of the community within the story and thus don’t want it to end.

Nada isn’t the most likeable of characters and we see her develop a lot over the course of the story. The key themes of this book are around self-love and self-growth and allowing yourself the time to accept your past shortcomings and go through both. Which brings me to another thing that I really appreciate about Jalaluddin’s books and that is how despite how messy her protagonists are, that part of their character doesn’t involve compromising their religion.

That being said there is a moment in this book that seems like a massive red flag when you initially get to it but the timeline of the story has a part to play here so fellow Muslim readers when you get to it you’ll know it and just trust me and continue reading.

"..it bothered her that people who themselves were stereotyped and looked down upon for their appearance so easily did the same to others."

Now coming back to the romance side of things, cringy song lyrics aside the romance was really sweet. I’ve come to realise that second chance romance, in particular contexts that this book definitely fits into, may be a favourite trope of mine. The dual timeline was perfect for unravelling and piecing together Nada and Baz’s history and what actually happened. I won’t give much more away but the yearning and mystery behind everything was so absorbing.

Nada’s development wasn’t solely related to romance in the book though and I really enjoyed the other parts of the plot and moments with supporting characters too. I particularly loved to see how supportive her family was of her endeavours which isn’t always the case when it comes to daughters in desi families.

Though the ending wrapped up a bit fast this was overall a wonderfully wholesome and genuine story and as ever I can’t wait to pick up whatever Jalaluddin writes next!
Final Rating – 4.5/5 Stars

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ballgownsandbooks's review against another edition

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I have a somewhat mixed track record with Uzma Jalaluddin, and I wasn’t originally planning to request this for review – but the publisher reached out to me, and once they’d offered, I wasn’t going to say no! But having proceeded to devour the book within 24 hours, and then sit on my feelings for over a fortnight, I’m still pretty conflicted about this book.

The retelling
The first thing to say is that it’s barely a Persuasion retelling. In typical Uzma Jalaluddin fashion, it’s an extremely loose reimagining – I can see where she’s taken inspiration from Austen, but if I wasn’t looking for the connections, I probably wouldn’t have realised it was a retelling at all. Beyond being a second chance romance, the plot beats aren’t the same at all, and Nada is certainly nothing like Anne Elliot!

The heroine
I do appreciate Jalaluddin’s ability to write complex heroines, but my main feeling about Nada was just that she was messy, which is a main character type that I personally tend not to do so well with. While I did relate to some of her feelings, particularly around trying to navigate her two cultures, I mostly found her pretty unlikeable and annoying. She makes some pretty huge mistakes, both in the past and present timelines, and she just felt very immature and self-absorbed!

The romance
I also wasn’t entirely sold on the romance. While I enjoyed some of Baz and Nada’s banter, especially in the flashbacks to their original relationship, there wasn’t really much depth to their relationship beyond that. In the original Persuasion, we’re led to believe that Anne and Wentworth could have been happy if they had got married when they first wanted to. But Baz and Nada were completely wrong for each other at 21 – without spoiling anything, I was truly floored by some of the stupid decisions they made, and I absolutely cannot believe that they would have had a successful relationship if they’d stayed together at that point! And they never really discuss their relationship deeply in the present timeline either, so even though they’re both (supposedly) wiser and more mature, that doesn’t feel like enough to fix all their issues.

(That said, the overall discussion around getting married young – particularly in the context of South Asian Muslims – hit me hard and made me feel a LOT of things, so I have to give credit to the writing, even if I didn’t love the characters!)

The representation
In terms of the wider story, I always appreciate the way Uzma Jalaluddin manages to capture such a wide spectrum of ways of being Muslim (right down to her willingness to embrace the more uncommon Muslim names – among others, this book had a Bazlur Rahman, Owais, Narjis, Waqas, Firdous...) There was also zero Islamophobia or racism in this book (although a lot of Nada’s struggles have to do with navigating her South Asian-Canadian identity, it’s internal conflict rather than bigotry), which made a nice change!

However, your mileage may vary on whether you consider it halal. I would echo the reviews that say you need to stick with it at the moment where it seems to be not halal in a major way, because that does get cleared up (again, trying to avoid spoilers!) – but still, the milder moments may also stretch the boundaries of what different people consider appropriate.

So overall… I didn’t love this? But I do think a lot of that was down to personal taste, and if you like books about messy, twenty-something women who are allowed to make mistakes, it’s definitely engaging and propulsive!

(Also, this is totally irrelevant to my feelings on the book itself, but I cannot get over how misleading this title is! Every time I think about this book I'm bemused all over again that it's not a retelling of Much Ado About Nothing!)

Thank you to Atlantic Books for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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