Intemperance

Reviews / Votes

"Jha adds depth to the brisk story with hints of the narrator's troubled family history and sticks the landing with a surprising and rewarding conclusion. It's a fresh and sassy take on romantic comedy conventions." - Publishers Weekly

"Jha uses her heroine to discuss specific issues that become universal. Despite the absurdity around her, the heroine remains certain of herself and true to herself, to her benefit and detriment. Her sense of inner peace grounds the narrative." - Kirkus Reviews

"Contemplating difficult questions about desire, aging, and cultural identity, Jha leverages humor and wisdom for an authentic, compelling blend of modern perspectives and ancient mythology. Readers who enjoyed the cultural tension in Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age and the midlife reckonings in Jenny Offill's Weather will find much to appreciate in Jha's exploration of late-in-life love, tradition, and the courage to challenge conventional expectations." - Booklist

"Intemperance isn't just an intellectually stimulating story; it's a saucy, sexy and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny tale of a middle-aged woman's desire and the steps she'll take to sate it. The woman's intemperance is seen as a curse, but she sees it as liberation." - BookPage (starred review)

"In her follow-up to The Laughter, Jha deftly weaves an engrossing tale of one woman's introspective journey with humor and honesty. Readers will be enthralled, and book groups will have much to discuss." - Library Journal (starred review)

"Jha's writing is lush, detailed, and sensual. ... Small matters do not go overlooked, if anything they add richness and immersiveness to the reading experience. ... Most importantly, even in the face of obvious tragedy, Jha's writing embraces joy. And joy, as it turns out, is sorely missing from these other tales of middle-aged dissatisfaction. ... [Intemperance] is a balm in an otherwise bleak literary and sociopolitical year, and is of a standard Jha herself already set with her darker 2023 novel The Laughter. In short, it is a book that can and should be read by all." - Chicago Review of Books

"Delightfully incisive ... Intemperance is a deep and honest meditation on love, aging, gender, and partnership. At its core, Jha's latest is a whimsical tale of joy and freedom. The message being that love-and the search for it-can be a feminist act. And that's something worth celebrating." - BUST

"Imbued with warmth and wit, Intemperance both satirizes and honors the search for love in middle age. At times laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes achingly poignant, the novel also reckons with serious themes such as the bucking of generational and cultural expectations, and the complexities of masculinity, disability and family estrangement." - Seattle Times

"Sassy, satirical, and oh-so-scintillating, this one-of-a-kind feminist novel is a meditation on marriage, masculinity, midlife, and everything in between. With a captivating narrator and a cast of loveable characters, Sonora Jha provides the perfect satirical escape." - Ms. Magazine

"Jha creates a well-paced narrative filled with surprises while also engaging in deep discussions on disability, caste, marriage, and motherhood." - International Examiner

"Oh, what fun I had reading this wild romp of a novel. But Intemperance-narrated by one of the funniest and most charming fictional characters I've met in my life-is more than a good time. It's a disarmingly honest and urgent book about the human search for love in all corners of existence: in the divine; in our fellow beings, human and not; and ultimately, within ourselves." - Vauhini Vara, author of Searches, This Is Salvaged, and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Immortal King Rao

"Gorgeous, witty, sexy, and smart, Intemperance is a wonderfully original tale of a woman facing off her own cynicism about love-and prevailing. Jha writes like a dream, and this book will delight you." - Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of Joyride and The Library Book

"Sonora Jha's celebration of the pursuit of desire as a feminist act is a subversive storytelling feat: as full of heart and humor and delight in the world as its determined and brilliant heroine. Intemperance is so full of surprising pleasures and gorgeous prose that you'll be torn between turning the pages as fast as possible and savoring every word. Buy it for your sisters and daughters and wives-and brothers and sons and husbands, too." - V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night, winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Carol Shields Prize

"A riotous meditation on how desire makes us crazy and how delightful and necessary an unhinged chase of desire can be! Jha has written the book that every non-cis-het-male, non-ableist, non-conforming human will want to live inside of: an uncompromising embrace of one's right to pursue longing, told in wondrously lush prose, with crackling wit, and cutting irreverence for religion, race, caste and the corporeal limits of an aging body. A mandatory lesson in flipping off patriarchy but with sublime, seductive grace, Intemperance triumphs at killing them with adaa." - Zara Chowdhary, author of The Lucky Ones

"Between the pages is an important discussion of age, gender, sex and culture that we all need to be having right now. ... With Intemperance, Jha has written an outstanding conversation starter." - The Spokesman-Review