More than the Title

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

By: Balli Kaur Jaswal

Grade: A

In need of some extra cash Nikki a young bartender/law school dropout takes a job teaching creative writing to Punjabi widows in Southall. They think they are going to be learning English literacy. Despite the mix-up the widows- who run the gamut of ages begin telling stories about their fantasies and their lives and things change for them all in ways Nikki couldn’t have imagined.

I heard about this book through Reese Witherspoon’s book club and because I am a sucker for books and celebrities I had to give it a try.

I absolutely loved Punjabi Widows.

First let’s just get it out of the way- there are stories sprinkled throughout the book. The widows have quite some fantasies. They aren’t long and really vary in graphicness. I think if you’ve ever seen Outlander you probably get the idea. There is also a subplot involving the death of one of the women’s daughters and was it a suicide or could it possibly have been an honor killing.

The book was just so relatable. I don’t know a great deal about the Sikh culture but it really has something that surpasses cultural bounds. The dialogue is realistic and flows so easily. There’s themes of sisterhood, friendships, duty vs. desire, family vs. independence, grief and acceptance, tradition smashing up against modernity, are things that everyone can understand. Nikki is also dealing with the loss of a parent and the idea that she doesn’t know if her father had forgiven her when he died.

I think this is just one of those books so many people can probably relate to in some way shape or form.

Meanwhile around all that is the blossoming women’s group that becomes a bit of a meeting ground growing larger and larger and quiet possibly attracting the attention of the Brotherhood- a group of out of work young men who’ve taken to policing the women of their neighborhood- to make sure they behave correctly.

In terms of any trigger warnings besides the talk of some women’s death and possible honor killings there’s also the issue of child brides- it’s mostly told in passing but one of the women was sold to her husband at ten!

My only real issue with this book was in my Kindle edition there were some formatting problems. Big ones to in one chapter where I felt like things were missing and it was very obvious. But like I said that was my Kindle so it could have been a fluke or maybe try another edition.

Recommend: Yes. I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. It’s also going into my this should be a movie or television show pile!