The Newlyweds

Powerful...in its clear-eyed openness and compassion toward the world, in its nuanced and human representation of Muslim characters and their varying Islams, and in the understanding and sympathy it displays for the nostalgia of migrants - which is to say, for all human beings, even those who are born and die in the same town and travel only in time

Mohsin Hamid, New York Times Book Review

This classic tale of missed chances, crushing errors of judgment, and scarring sacrifices, all compounded by cultural differences, is perfectly pitched, piercingly funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking

Booklist starred review

Every minute I was away from this book I was longing to be back in the world she created

Ann Patchett, author of 'State of Wonder'

Wise, timely, ripe with humour and complexity, The Newlyweds is one of the most believable love stories of our young century

Gary Shteyngart, author of 'Super Sad True Love Story'

That Amina and George manage to muddle though the first years of marriage is a testament to the power of love and respect; that we care about them all the way through says as much about Freudenberger's keen observations and generous heart

O, The Oprah Magazine

Freudenberger, a deliciously precise and perceptive writer, loosely based Amina on a woman she met on an airplane, and when she describes Amina's recognition 'that the permanent part of your own experience' is largely an illusion, we can only be glad they struck up what must have been a helluva conversation

Elle Magazine

Dazzling

Entertainment Weekly

A delight, one of the easiest book recommendations of the year . . . Freudenberger knows Amina as well as Jane Austen knows Emma, and despite its globe-spanning set changes, The Newlyweds offers a reading experience redolent of Janeite charms: gentle touches of social satire, subtly drawn characters and dialogue that expresses far more than its polite surface

Washington Post

With her penetrating understanding of and respect for her subjects, both foreign and domestic, [Freudenberger is] an international writer of stature for the twenty-first century

Yiyun Li

Exceptional...here is an honest depiction of life as most people actually live it: Americans and Asians, Christians and Muslims, liberals and conservatives. Freudenberger writes with a cultural fluency that is remarkable and a prose that is clean, intelligent, and very witty

David Bezmozgis, author of 'The Free World'

There is an incandescent talent at work here

The Times

Remarkable...a truly prodigious talent

Richard Ford

Prose as warm and refreshing as a Californian morning

Evening Standard

Genuinely moving . . . Freudenberger demonstrates her assurance as a novelist and her knowledge of the complicated arithmetic of familial love, and the mathematics of romantic passion

Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Like Lahiri, Franzen and Eugenides, Freudenberger excels at chronicling her characters' emotional lives and world views

San Francisco Chronicle

It's really, really good . . . A luscious and intelligent novel that will stick with you

NPR

Captivating

Boston Globe