More About No Ordinary Thursday
In No Ordinary Thursday, a family, broken by the shattering turns of a single day, will do anything to find their way back to one another.
Lena Sharma is a successful San Francisco restaurateur. An immigrant, she’s cultivated an image of conservatism and tradition in her close-knit Indian community. But when Lena’s carefully constructed world begins to crumble, her ties to her daughter, Maya, and son, Sameer—both raised in thoroughly modern California—slip further away.
Maya, divorced once, becomes engaged to a man twelve years her junior: Veer Kapoor, the son of Lena’s longtime friend. Immediately Maya feels her mother’s disgrace and the judgment of an insular society she was born into but never chose, while Lena’s cherished friendship frays. Meanwhile, Maya’s younger brother, Sameer, struggles with an addiction that reaches a devastating and very public turning point, upending his already tenuous future.
As the mother, daughter, and son are compromised by tragedy, secrets, and misconceptions, they each must determine what it will take to rebuild their bonds and salvage what’s left of their family.
More About Anoop Judge
Born and raised in New Delhi, Anoop is the author of four novels, The Rummy Club which
won the 2015 Beverly Hills Book Award, The Awakening of Meena Rawat, an excerpt of
which was nominated for the 2019 Pushcart Prize, No Ordinary Thursday, and Mercy and Grace. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Rigorous Journal, Lumiere Review, DoubleBack Review, and the Ornament anthology, among others.
Anoop calls herself a “recovering litigator”—she worked in state and federal courts for many years before she replaced legal briefs with fictional tales. She holds an MFA from St. Mary’s College of California and was the recipient of the 2021 Advisory Board Award and the 2023 Alumni Scholarship.
She lives in Pleasanton, California, with her husband, and is the mother of two admirable young adults.
Thoughts on No Ordinary Thursday
We all live our lives thinking we know our friends, our family, even ourself. But what choices would we make when faced with difficult situations? What secrets are our loved ones keeping that no one knows? No Ordinary Thursday weaves the tale of a family that seems like any other family - until their secrets aren't so secret anymore. You'll find yourself asking how you would react if you were in the place of some of the characters in No Ordinary Thursday. What choices would you make? What changes would you accept? What secrets would you keep? Would your relationships survive the strain?
I enjoyed watching how people dealt with the events that shook their community to the core. The characters were so well crafted that I wished for a prequel and a sequel so I could leap into their lives again. Even one little memory of an event from years past was so full of detail that I was wishing to travel back and learn more. If you're anything like me, you'll find this community addictive.
A Little Extra
I was introduced to Anoop Judge's books when I read her latest book Mercy and Grace. I couldn't get enough of this novel that also portrayed the Indian community but straddled two time periods and two countries. Mercy and Grace asks some interesting questions about what we would do when family and love were at odds. What choices would you make?
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