There was a Twitter joke doing the rounds recently that is an apt commentary on this book: Science needs to come up with a way to turn bad books back into trees. Formerly a racy, sensationalist blog with aspirations of “outing” the “double standards” of Fantastic Plastic Life Central, aka Dubai, Ameera Al Hakawati (not her real name) has committed to print, a story.
What Hakawati gets right is presenting life in Dubai as inherently duplicitous. Large swathes of expats do arrive to reinvent their histories, forget their pasts, make tax-free cash, live the high life — for as long as their residence visas permit. The smell of petrol and trash as you arrive at the airport, the fact that you must put your jacket on indoors in over-enthusiastically airconditioned public spaces, but take it off outdoors, the rumours, the disguises, the sexy outfits under the abayas, the racing on Jumeirah Beach Road — that’s all there.
There is also a very raw, very clear image portrayed of the desperation that seems to colour all dating arenas that is a direct fallout of the oppressive, hypocritical social life in this “liberated” Islamic city.
The local men “holding up their phones” with their numbers showing for the women to surreptiously take note of. The chauvinistic attitudes of typical Arabis who will want to date the “hot chick” but want to marry their hirsute virgin cousins. The fact that if you have your car window rolled half down, you are “asking for it”.
But this is about all you can get from Desperate in Dubai. The actual story is about four women, ranging from their early twenties to their early thirties, beautiful by description, in Dubai to “start anew”. Leila is the oldest. A big-haired, breast-implanted Lebanese cliché looking for a husband with more desperation than a Sex and the City script.
Lady Luxe is half English and half aristocratic Emirati. After completing her education in London, she returns to her luxury villa, by day she sells designer abayas, by night, she dons a blonde wig, dances at clubs and has a series of one-night stands. Nadia has come to Dubai from London with Daniel, her recently converted-to-Islam hound-dog husband. Sugar is a London-bred, Gujarati-Muslim running away from a suspected honour killing of her black boyfriend.
But for a book by a woman author that relies on the intersecting lives of four women, the tale is depressingly misogynistic. The references to the men — Mr Delicious, Goldenboy, “the smooth skin and gold-flecked irises”, the lingering looks, the chance meetings, the constant romantic coincidences (no sooner does one man exit a woman’s life than another one suddenly appears, and of course, they are all instantly smitten by these women) — are reminiscent of the worst possible trashy romances.
The plotting and scheming against each other that ensues when the women’s lives tangle uncomfortably is seriously un-sisterly. Hakawati’s characters do not abide by the universal “Bros before Hoes” rule. And amidst all the sexual tension, lying, cheating, struggles for identity are anomalous references to Islam. Characters are constantly taking time off from their fractured lives to pray, talk about “God”, live righteous lives: not unimaginable in itself, but portrayed in a ridiculous manner, seemingly cut-pasted into the action.
Amidst all of this, there is also the suspicion that the author has indulged in some product-placement — store names, malls, designers, are referred to and recommended.
There is nothing to recommend this book. The writing is below par, the language is flawed at its worst, flowery at its best, the story is predictable, insipid, immature. The only saving grace is that in one scene, the author herself suggests what might become of this book: it may have the germ that could turn into the plague that is a racy Bollywood potboiler. And that is its only saving grace. Because it is far too late to turn it back into a tree.