The Tearoom- Gretchen Halley

The Tearoom is the novel if you are looking for an authentic South African read. The way Gretchen Haley depicted the story of Thirapatheegadu Ezekiel Reddy (Tubby) who is the proud owner of a Tearoom in KZN is superb. He is an authentic version of a proud shop owner who despite having a business suffers from loneliness due to being married to a hypochondriac. 

Then Tubby is set to turn 50 and this man who is slightly round around the middle takes a liking to his kitchen assistant.

So just a month left to go, Tubby starts to cook up a plan to reach his dream while something else is cooking...

"She was a regular because she seldom cooked. I suspected this wasn't because she couldn't, but rather because she wanted to set herself apart from other Indian women who were slaving over hot stoves." This stereotype resonated with me. Oftentimes when women buy food rather than cook food, it seems like they have a dislike for embracing the ideal world where women slave away but sometimes we all need a break, a take out and a good read like, "The Tea Room".

I was particularly glad that a first-person narrator was used to tell the story as this made all the character's feelings, thoughts and jokes come to life. For the older South African citizen, the trip down memory lane was excellent with reminders of the show "Shaka Zulu,"

Best quotes:

"What is it about falling in love?"  We know it's a risk. We know it can be terribly painful, destroy our lives even, but we crave it anyway."

"With her being so expert at rotis, samoosa, and so forth, it was hard to imagine who could replace her."