20 Under 40: A Comprehensive (Subjective) Guide

Nell Freudenberger, “An Arranged Marriage,” September 6:

This one reminded me too much of Bezmozgis’s story to feel original or interesting. Amina, a Bangladeshi woman, meets a man on the Internet and goes to America with the intention of marrying him, without ever having met him. After a pretty short time, they do get married.

The romance between Amina and George—the way she learns to love his face and truly gets excited to marry him—is cute. But not much is really happening here, and the biggest point of tension seems to come from her clumsiness at the wedding when she forgets, at first, to kiss him, later explaining, when he asks her what happened, “You didn’t tell me.” After Li’s story, about a lonely woman bereft of romance or friendship, this was a bit of an improvement, but not much. Still pretty uneventful, quiet, and boring.