You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
That last story ... thunderous effect.
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This is easily one of the worst books I’ve ever read, if not the worst. I’m shocked at its International Booker win. All the characters are so one dimensional—either saint-like or total demons. There is no nuance in the stories or in the storytelling, and the narratives felt so dated like how is a book like this winning a major international award in 2025?! I can’t believe an excellent book like Reservoir Bitches, which was also on the shortlist, lost out to this. There is no literary quality to the writing in Heart Lamp and all the stories were so repetitive and in literally all of them the woman is the victim resigned to her fate. Even the dialogues, sometimes I felt like I was watching a C-grade Hindi soap opera on Star Plus.
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
I forgot this was a collection of stories so was confused at first…but then I realized it’s selected stories and had a very lovely reading experience learning about a different culture and also where there are similarities not in order to flatten the culture rather as a way to form connection and understanding
Read half of it - none of the stories are compelling - just ordinary sad stories about Muslim women. I wasn't impressed, but they were fine I guess?
beautifully raw and sophisticated writing, but only four stars because i found myself overwhelmed during certain stories. i feel as though the full essence of the story was lost through the process of translation, which is common in most cases and i truly wish i knew how to read the untranslated version. i think i was a little biased towards giving this a higher rating because i found myself relating closely with characters, not particularly to the same or even similar experiences but understanding the suffering of the characters
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
⭐️⭐️ (2 out of 5)
Look - I wanted to love this one. I went in ready to light a candle at the altar of the International Booker judges and their holy wisdom. But halfway through Heart Lamp, I felt like I was reading the same story on repeat, just with a different shade of tragedy and a slightly altered spice blend.
Let’s get this straight: Banu Mushtaq is clearly a literary force, and the translation by Deepa Bhasthi deserves praise for its nuance, rhythm, and refusal to spoon-feed a Western audience. There’s grit, fury, and pain in these stories, and they’re rooted deeply in the realities of Muslim women in Karnataka. The language doesn’t shy away from pain. The world doesn’t explain itself. And I respect the hell out of that.
But here's the rub: all twelve stories blur into one long dirge. The characters - mostly women bent under the weight of their marriages, their mothers-in-law, their ungrateful sons, their dead-end lives - start to feel indistinguishable. Same tone, same mood, same exhausted sigh of “I was only his wife - that is, free labour.” I mean, fair! But twelve times?
The lack of agency is the point, yes. These women live in a world that clips their wings before they know they had any. But I found myself longing for some variation - rage, resistance, even a tiny act of rebellion that wasn’t immediately swallowed up by duty or despair. Instead, it was an emotional monotone: a dirge in twelve keys, all minor.
And while the prose is often gorgeous, the storytelling itself leans toward the didactic. Some tales read more like allegorical lectures than narratives. I kept hoping for a jolt - something to break through the haze of sameness. But the emotional arc stayed flat, the resolution often a resigned shrug.
I also couldn’t shake the feeling that this collection won the Booker more for what it represents than for what it delivers. It’s the first Kannada-language book to be nominated, and the first to win. That matters. It’s a powerful recognition of a regional language, of Muslim women’s stories, of translation as a political act. But when I stack it next to the raw fury of Reservoir Bitches or the surreal brilliance of Under the Eye of Big Bird, Heart Lamp just doesn’t burn as brightly.
Final thoughts:
This is an important book - historically, culturally, linguistically. But as a reading experience? It left me unmoved. Or rather, consistently moved in the same way: weary, frustrated, and eventually numb.
Great for readers invested in translation, literary history, and feminist texts from South Asia. But if you're here for variety, dynamism, or narrative spark, Heart Lamp might flicker out before it catches fire.
Look - I wanted to love this one. I went in ready to light a candle at the altar of the International Booker judges and their holy wisdom. But halfway through Heart Lamp, I felt like I was reading the same story on repeat, just with a different shade of tragedy and a slightly altered spice blend.
Let’s get this straight: Banu Mushtaq is clearly a literary force, and the translation by Deepa Bhasthi deserves praise for its nuance, rhythm, and refusal to spoon-feed a Western audience. There’s grit, fury, and pain in these stories, and they’re rooted deeply in the realities of Muslim women in Karnataka. The language doesn’t shy away from pain. The world doesn’t explain itself. And I respect the hell out of that.
But here's the rub: all twelve stories blur into one long dirge. The characters - mostly women bent under the weight of their marriages, their mothers-in-law, their ungrateful sons, their dead-end lives - start to feel indistinguishable. Same tone, same mood, same exhausted sigh of “I was only his wife - that is, free labour.” I mean, fair! But twelve times?
The lack of agency is the point, yes. These women live in a world that clips their wings before they know they had any. But I found myself longing for some variation - rage, resistance, even a tiny act of rebellion that wasn’t immediately swallowed up by duty or despair. Instead, it was an emotional monotone: a dirge in twelve keys, all minor.
And while the prose is often gorgeous, the storytelling itself leans toward the didactic. Some tales read more like allegorical lectures than narratives. I kept hoping for a jolt - something to break through the haze of sameness. But the emotional arc stayed flat, the resolution often a resigned shrug.
I also couldn’t shake the feeling that this collection won the Booker more for what it represents than for what it delivers. It’s the first Kannada-language book to be nominated, and the first to win. That matters. It’s a powerful recognition of a regional language, of Muslim women’s stories, of translation as a political act. But when I stack it next to the raw fury of Reservoir Bitches or the surreal brilliance of Under the Eye of Big Bird, Heart Lamp just doesn’t burn as brightly.
Final thoughts:
This is an important book - historically, culturally, linguistically. But as a reading experience? It left me unmoved. Or rather, consistently moved in the same way: weary, frustrated, and eventually numb.
Great for readers invested in translation, literary history, and feminist texts from South Asia. But if you're here for variety, dynamism, or narrative spark, Heart Lamp might flicker out before it catches fire.