A Convenient Marriage tells the story of Chaya and Gimhana who meet and become happily married. But it's a marriage of convenience. You see, Chaya is still in love with a white British man from her student days who her traditional Sri Lankan parents wouldn't approve of and Gimhana is gay, which wouldn't be approved of by his family. Both are under increasing pressure to get married and follow traditional customs so they decide to enter into a sham marriage just to please their families. But their arrangement comes under strain when they both fall in love with other people.

I enjoyed the book. The narrator did a really good job with the book and her voice matched the characters well.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book.

I really wanted to love this book - the premise sounded interesting, and I enjoy reading books with different cultures to my own. And I initially thought I was going to love it as we met Chaya, Noah, and Gimhana.

However I simply couldn't get into the shifting perspectives and time scales. They left me feeling lost and rather out of sorts, and took away from the pleasure of listening as I rested. Which is a real shame, as I wanted to find out what happened to all the characters, but I ended up giving up.

Having read other reviews from people who absolutely loved the book, I do believe this is probably far more to do with me and the way my brain fog affects my ability to follow the storyline than an issue with the book itself. So I have been loathe to leave this review, thinking I might get back to it to give it another shot. But I simply haven't. Sorry.

I enjoyed this book a lot, great story. Great narrator as well, I sped through it and will be recommending to many friends.

Absolutely could not stop listening to this. Very gripping book which really gripped my emotions. Would reccomend to everyone

This book was about a gay man and a straight woman marrying to get their parents to stop nagging them to get married. Eventually they found love outside their marriage and moved on. It was an easy listen if not a little bit predictable.

Gimhana and Chaya are both Sri Lankan from traditional families.They’re both getting pressure from their families to marry, so they do the only thing they can come up with, marry each other just to stop hearing it from their parents.
They aren’t a couple, they’re not “in love” this is more a marriage of convenience He’s gay, has not come out to anyone, not his family, (that wouldn’t go over well) or his coworkers. She isn’t even thinking about finding love as she’s still traumatized by a mental breakdown as well as losing the man who she was deeply in love with at college.
Gimhana and Chaya’s marriage is working out fine until they both fall in love.
Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book for an honest review. When we think about relationships and breakups a lot of people say, “it wasn’t you it’s me” that’s how I felt about this book and have given it no stars.

ARC audiobook provided by NetGalley. I loved this book. The characters were amazing, but I also loved how they changed from beginning to end. This book shows the real struggles of many people in the LGBTQ+ community regarding their families.

4.5 Stars

I was unexpectedly unable to stop listening to A Convenient Marriage by Jeevani Charika. Nikki Patel is an excellent narrator for this story and brought Chaya and Gimhana to life. Chaya and Gim both struggle with their own wants that stand in stark contrast of the conservative Sri Lankan expectations and values. I was delighted to discover that this isn't a book about marriage, not really, but about friendship and family.

It is told in a non-linear fashion which made it a little difficult when listening if I wasn't paying close attention to the year but for the purposes of the plot, I think it was the best way for the story to unfold.

The ending made me genuinely smile as it wrapped it up and I'm more than a little sad it's over. Overall, this is a great read and I can't believe I haven't heard more about this book.

"Life is messy. We're all trying to get through it the best we can."


Thanks so much to Negalley and the publisher for the audiobook arc!

I fell in love with this story. I loved everything about it the story, the plot, and the charactors. I love that they both end up with a happy ending despite everything they had to do to get that HAPPY ENDING. I loved Chaya and I adored Gimhana.

A really unusual story but realistic about Chaya born from Sri Lankan parents who want her to settle down into marriage, however she does not feel ready but agrees to meet future husbands after having turned away the one true love of her life, Noah, as she is terrified of their disapproval.

Gimhana who is gay and hiding his sexuality from his family and collleagues but is advised that if he wishes to succeed with his Company he should settle down and marry.

They are introduced and the story delves into their relationship taking into account their families beliefs and their individual relationship history. I’m glad I chose this as an audio book as it was enjoyable and to me added more depth to the story.

This was a good romance with a lot of cute bits but unfortunately it wasn't for me. I felt as if it was a little to obvious and was trying to hard to be a Bollywood story. It felt like a caricature of what it could have been.
I did really like the characters and they were what made me actually enjoy this book. They felt very real but their story is what got to me. I really related to the mc just as a whole. I also appreciated the diversity seen within this book.
Overall if you are into the over the top Bollywood story then this is definitely the book for you. It has a ton of those classic elements.

A Convenient Marriage tells the story of Chaya and Gimhana who meet and become happily married. BUT.... it's a marriage of, well.... convenience. You see, Chaya is still in love with a white British man from her student days who her traditional Sri Lankan parents wouldn't approve of and Gimhana is gay, which wouldn't be approved of by his family. Both are under increasing pressure to get married and follow traditional customs so they decide to enter into a sham marriage just to please their families. But their arrangement comes under strain when they both fall in love with other people.
I did enjoy the book but it jumped timelines quite a bit at some points and so I would get a bit confused as to what was happening. Also, the pacing of the story was a little slow at times and I found my mind drifting away from the story. I'm not sure why but I think I was expecting a bit more rom-com or drama content and this was just solidly middle of the road with nothing overly attention grabbing.
I did really like the characters and the overall concept. Chaya in particular is a really believable and understandable character. I totally empathised with her situation and can imagine that there are women out there going through the same things.
The narrator did a really good job with the book and her voice matched the characters well.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of this audiobook in return for an honest opinion.

A sweet story, about a marriage of convenience in the Sri Lankan community. Set in the UK, Sri Lanka and Canada, this is a well told story, with likeable characters, that explores what it means to be either a career woman or a gay man with a Sri Lankan heritage. I thoroughly enjoyed this story, with it's ups and downs, and alright it had a sweet ending, but the main characters deserved that.

This book was good but seemed unnecessarily long. The storyline was good, characters were relatable and likeable. The difficulty with this book, and maybe it was because it was an audio book, was that it jumped between different and it was difficult to follow. I think the jumping back and forth so much was the only big complaint I had because I found it hard to. Remember what year the current chapter was in. I had to wait for context clues through the characters.

I was deeply invested in this book. At first it was because I could relate to Chaya but then my inner parlor Auntie came out as she and Ghim dug their graves deeper and deeper. I'll definitely be gifting this book to my favorite gossip aunt.

This was a good audiobook, I don’t feel as though I missed anything by not reading it.

It’s a nice story of arranged marriage, love, friendships and second chances.

4.5/5
I am so surprised at how much I liked this! Firstly, I rarely listen to audiobooks because I have a hard time focusing but I listened to this on my commute to work and was really engaged. Secondly, I don't read a lot of contemporary fiction. Despite that, I still really liked this! The story spans over a decade or two and follows Chaya, a Sri Lankan doctoral student in Oxford, and Gim, a gay Sri Lankan lawyer in London, as they decide to enter a marriage of convenience to appease their families. The two develop a close friendship but eventually both start to fall in love outside of the marriage and have to decided to stay together for their family's sake or go for the other love that they both want. I liked this so much I got a physical copy for myself.

Thank you to netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Jeevani Charika introduces her readers to a whole gaggle of colorful characters in A Convenient Marriage. Following two Sri Lankan people more dedicated to their work than they are to their own self care. Chaya and Gimhana are both from traditional families and that aspect alone dictates their decisions in life. Chaya falls in love with a man “unsuitable” by every standard her family and culture can imagine. Gimhana has always known he was gay, but after being attacked for it he decides to hide that part of himself from everyone around him.

The plot of the story begins by jumping back and forth between 1995, when Chaya started at Oxford, and 2005. Much of the first half of the book revolves around Chaya and her relationship with a man named Noah—either she’s right in the middle of it or she’s mourning their lost relationship. Noah’s it for her, she’s it for him; he envisions endgame and she envisions the literal degradation and ruin of her family if she tries to bring this white boy home to meet the family. She is staunchly against their relationship continuing beyond college or even the next day, convinced that they were doomed from the onset. She ends the relationship and is incredibly depressed, a time she calls her ‘Breakdown’. She then proceeds to mourn their relationship for TEN YEARS.

Gimhana is with another boy when we’re introduced to him and it is cute for exactly .02 seconds until they get hate-crimed. I think he was like, maybe 19?? Understandably, he becomes incredibly careful about seeming at all homosexual. In 2005 he’s a lawyer at an incredibly old fashioned practice, where he gets passed over for lesser men because they’re married with children. He’s told numerous times that to get ahead in the firm, he should get married. It doesn’t help that he’s the only brown person and is perpetually single and people might start to talk.

It’s a fluke, really, that these two meet at a party while visiting their respective families in Sri Lanka. Both of their mothers have been setting them up with eligible single people and it just so happens that these two human train wrecks meet behind a pillar. Gim’s sloshed on whiskey and Chaya’s in a fancy pantsuit. But they recognize something in each other, the same kind of loneliness. When they start spending time together in London, Gim tries to take care of Chaya when she’s not used to doing anything with other people.

Their friendship flourishes but we don’t even get to the concept of them marrying until the halfway point of the book. That’s so much time spent mourning Chaya’s relationship, especially considering how many times she ends up encountering him. But, of course, it just wouldn’t work. The scene where they have coffee after her honeymoon????

“My wife and I are separating…”
“Hey Noah remember when I dumped you bc this would never work? Well I’m married now LOL.”

Y’ALL. Also did I mention we’ve now entered 2007? And 2012; and 2016; we get back to 2013 for a while too. I don’t mind a story where there are regular flashbacks but for the love of every conceivable deity WHY did A Convenient Marriage need to jump in nearly every chapter? It got so hard to follow after a while. The pacing was really strange for me mostly because the blurb made it seem like the marriage itself was the focus when that wasn’t entirely true. Yes, marriage is the overwhelming theme, but the marriage in question doesn’t take place until halfway in. After a 7 year time jump, Chaya’s job is still the same while Gim got ahead in the firm like he wanted. He’s been sleeping with a man for over a year and hasn’t told Chaya? And he told his boyfriend that she was his housemate?
I mean, not wrong, but Gimhana got dragged for filth and he deserved it.

“It was the perfect marriage…until they fell in love” yeah, with OTHER PEOPLE. Chaya spends the entire plot post-wedding as Gimhana’s beard and sure, being married got her family off her back, but he definitely got the lion’s share of the perks. He abuses their marriage agreement because he got complacent and she’s the one who gets the brunt of the judgement at first. The second half of the book is his relationship with his secret boyfriend and Chaya is STILL all about Noah. After she asks for a divorce from Gim, she even goes to Canada to find him??? Like a fucking stalker. How did she think that was gonna go? You dumped him TWICE. But he’s the love of her life or whatever so it’s fine apparently.

And then their second chance happens like 3 pages from the end like what is pacing??? Doesn’t exist.

Final notes: two Sri Lankan train wrecks parading as functional adults need to go to THERAPY.

A beautifully read story of a couple who arranged their own marriage of convenience. Set over the years from university to their mid thirties the couple are facing angst over their choices, pleasing family, friends & colleagues, accepting the norm and finally living their true authenticity. Facing truth and accepting the changes that need to happen for a true life. Could be any culture but this is centred around a Sri Lankan couple who live in London. Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook to review.

TW : homophobia, physical abuse, discrimination, mental health, arranged marriage

So many important subjects are broached in this book : companionship, platonic friendship, learning to be true to yourself, etc.

Some parts felt unnecessarily long to me, but overall I really enjoyed this book! I liked how Chaya and Gimhana were first brought together, and how their relationship evolved. And the way the book ended was excellent too!