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vaibhavsh2624's review against another edition
3.0
Just finished reading this book. A really good premise and wild ride of thoughts and emotions.
A well told story and a really well written book but to what use?
The end of the book is really disappointing. The author leaves you wondering while you are really engrossed in the book. It just abruptly ends without giving you a clear ending or any closure.
A well told story and a really well written book but to what use?
The end of the book is really disappointing. The author leaves you wondering while you are really engrossed in the book. It just abruptly ends without giving you a clear ending or any closure.
aldow94's review
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
thebobsphere's review against another edition
2.0
Although I am a fan of dystopian novels, I am also aware that there are certain tropes and that it is easy for this type of genre to fall prey to them. I am especially wary when they are compared to Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Unfortunately Prayaag Akbar’s novel suffers from this problem.
There are some original ideas. One is that I have never read a dystopian novel which takes place in India. Also the plot centres around a woman who buries a candle in order to commemorate her daughter’s disappearance/kidnapping. This is an undefined future that is a police state.
From then onward the books uses every cliche that one finds in dystopian fiction; there’s the thought police, arrests, the sense of paranoia, the pervading main office, unnecessary deaths. It as all been done before. Not once did I admire any of the ideas proposed in Leila, simply because they’ve made appearances at one time or another in other novels.
Yes I was disappointed but I do hope that other readers will get more out of the book than I did.
There are some original ideas. One is that I have never read a dystopian novel which takes place in India. Also the plot centres around a woman who buries a candle in order to commemorate her daughter’s disappearance/kidnapping. This is an undefined future that is a police state.
From then onward the books uses every cliche that one finds in dystopian fiction; there’s the thought police, arrests, the sense of paranoia, the pervading main office, unnecessary deaths. It as all been done before. Not once did I admire any of the ideas proposed in Leila, simply because they’ve made appearances at one time or another in other novels.
Yes I was disappointed but I do hope that other readers will get more out of the book than I did.
spicedragon's review against another edition
4.0
4/5
A look into a very possible dystopian future, that isn't that much different from the current climate in South Asia. We follow Shalini as she searches for her daughter, from Shalini's childhood to the moment her daughter is taken from her and she's forced into a "slum"
I appreciate that the fact that Shalini isn't exactly the most likeable, you sympathize with her, but at the end it becomes apparent that regardless of what she's been through and the how the stringent rules of society have reduced her to nothing she still has internalized the same thoughts...
The ending I thought was appropriate and honestly, just overall a well written book with commentary on how the effects of climate change and casteism go hand in hand.
TW for sexual assault and mentions of caste based violence
A look into a very possible dystopian future, that isn't that much different from the current climate in South Asia. We follow Shalini as she searches for her daughter, from Shalini's childhood to the moment her daughter is taken from her and she's forced into a "slum"
I appreciate that the fact that Shalini isn't exactly the most likeable, you sympathize with her, but at the end it becomes apparent that regardless of what she's been through and the how the stringent rules of society have reduced her to nothing she still has internalized the same thoughts...
The ending I thought was appropriate and honestly, just overall a well written book with commentary on how the effects of climate change and casteism go hand in hand.
TW for sexual assault and mentions of caste based violence
scarletohhara's review against another edition
4.0
It is actually a 3.5 star book, but I have to give it 4 stars because of how it made me feel - shudder in the knowledge that the dystopian world of this book could actually be a reality.
I also appreciated the details in the plot which make it an Indian story. I thought the plot had a great premise, but weakened a bit midway, making for a weak ending.
The literature and narration were good, a refreshing feeling after the recent bad crop of Indian authors in English.
The effort to close the story this complex, with very few open endings, all in the spread of one book is commendable too.
Read this book if you've felt a growing uncertainty if the world in Atwood's Handmaiden's Tale would be a reality... Leila's world is close and could be in our neighborhood.
I also appreciated the details in the plot which make it an Indian story. I thought the plot had a great premise, but weakened a bit midway, making for a weak ending.
The literature and narration were good, a refreshing feeling after the recent bad crop of Indian authors in English.
The effort to close the story this complex, with very few open endings, all in the spread of one book is commendable too.
Read this book if you've felt a growing uncertainty if the world in Atwood's Handmaiden's Tale would be a reality... Leila's world is close and could be in our neighborhood.
singh_reads_kanwar2's review against another edition
4.0
The story is based on future of our country under current scenario, where religion supremacy has reached its heights, We have water and air scarcity, Capitalism is at its highest and the people in power are those who are there for minister to be there back, contacts are everything and if you belong to another religion surely your small mistake will make you pay higher price which you don't want to put on stakes. In a digitized city, sometime in the near future, as an obsession with purity escalates, walls come up dividing and confining communities. Behind the walls high civic order prevails. In the forgotten spaces between, where garbage gathers and disease festers, Shalini must search for Leila, the daughter she lost one tragic summer sixteen years ago , her husband died and she was put behind walls of hate and puritans, rules and living is difficult for rich and prosperous ones. Skirting surveillance systems and thuggish Repeaters, Shalini—once wealthy, with perhaps a wayward past; now a misfit, pushed to the margins—is propelled only by her search. It's a story of longing, faith and most of all loss, Shalini got help from rebels who want to change there life. With its unflinching gaze on class, privilege and the choices that today confront us and its startling, almost prophetic vision of the world
lailat's review against another edition
3.0
‘Anyone who can afford it hides behind walls. They think they’re doing it for security, for purity, but somewhere inside its shame, shame at their own greed. How they’ve made the rest of us live.‘
Leila by Prayaag Akbar is a dystopian set in India, where citizens have created walled communities, with interaction between the communities prohibited. We follow Shalini, whose daughter, Leila, was taken on her third birthday. On the same night, Shalini’s husband is killed, and Shalini herself is taken to live in a ‘Purity Camp’, separated from the rest of society. The reason behind this violent separation of the family was because Shalini and her husband were from different communities, and decided to raise Leila away from these communities. Sixteen years on, Shalini still has hope that she will find Leila again.
‘It is not something from me but something of me that has been taken. The part that could feel warmth, happiness, desire. Perhaps I have yielded something of myself.‘
The basis behind the novel is clearly based on the social hierarchies of India’s caste system, which still plays a part in Indian society today. I appreciated the exploration around living against societal norms, and the impact this could have on family relations. I also really empathised with the motherhood aspect – of a mother holding on to hope of seeing her child again even once so many years have passed.
This is a quiet and slow dystopian – think Sophie Mackintosh or Kazuo Ishiguro. The beginning was pretty compelling, and my attention was held towards the end, but the middle of the novel dragged for me, and even now, only a few days after reading it, is kind of a blur. Although I thought the premise of the novel was brilliant, and on paper is exactly the kind of dystopian I should love, unfortunately the middle meant it fell slightly flat for me.
Leila by Prayaag Akbar is a dystopian set in India, where citizens have created walled communities, with interaction between the communities prohibited. We follow Shalini, whose daughter, Leila, was taken on her third birthday. On the same night, Shalini’s husband is killed, and Shalini herself is taken to live in a ‘Purity Camp’, separated from the rest of society. The reason behind this violent separation of the family was because Shalini and her husband were from different communities, and decided to raise Leila away from these communities. Sixteen years on, Shalini still has hope that she will find Leila again.
‘It is not something from me but something of me that has been taken. The part that could feel warmth, happiness, desire. Perhaps I have yielded something of myself.‘
The basis behind the novel is clearly based on the social hierarchies of India’s caste system, which still plays a part in Indian society today. I appreciated the exploration around living against societal norms, and the impact this could have on family relations. I also really empathised with the motherhood aspect – of a mother holding on to hope of seeing her child again even once so many years have passed.
This is a quiet and slow dystopian – think Sophie Mackintosh or Kazuo Ishiguro. The beginning was pretty compelling, and my attention was held towards the end, but the middle of the novel dragged for me, and even now, only a few days after reading it, is kind of a blur. Although I thought the premise of the novel was brilliant, and on paper is exactly the kind of dystopian I should love, unfortunately the middle meant it fell slightly flat for me.
sh_ooshan's review against another edition
2.0
I don't know what to feel. The way the prejudices and discrimination within Shalini were very interesting to read, considering what was happening in her own life, and the world-building too. But I wasn't as involved in the story-telling as I'd hoped.
josephinininie's review
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75