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hollyragreads's review against another edition
3.0
Could have been good. the story line had a lot of potential, but it was overall a frustrating book. I realize that they live in a different culture than me, so there is no way for me to understand how hard their discoveries must be, but halfway through the book, I just wanted to slap the main character and tell her to just call her sister on the East coast.
speliti's review against another edition
3.0
While I found the cultural references interesting, the lack of a plot really made me bored through most of this book.
ansh777's review against another edition
emotional
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? Yes
3.0
It was just too long but it was moving and it opened my eyes
kendyllgull's review against another edition
3.0
This semester, I'm gaining more insight into a culture that hardly ever crossed my path. I love that Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters juxtaposes Eastern and Western cultures. Was it my favorite book? No. Did I learn something from it? Yes. Do I regret reading it? I never regret a book.
delilahrosemit's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
anatomydetective's review against another edition
2.0
This could have been a good book, but the pacing was completely off. The writing itself wasn't terrible. Amusingly my town was featured. Good job, Montclair.
hollzinspace's review against another edition
3.0
Could have been good. the story line had a lot of potential, but it was overall a frustrating book. I realize that they live in a different culture than me, so there is no way for me to understand how hard their discoveries must be, but halfway through the book, I just wanted to slap the main character and tell her to just call her sister on the East coast.
kaitlin_dunford's review against another edition
2.0
I gave this book two stars because there were like 40 pages towards the end that were really interesting and worth reading. The rest of it....I don't know what to say. I found the protagonist neither likable nor relatable. The author spent what seemed like EONS on the protagonist's feelings about things that eventually meant basically nothing in the plot. It seemed like nothing was connected. Nothing fit together. There didn't seem to be an overall message. Every time I could ALMOST detect a theme or a message or something, it got replaced by another tangent. There were loose ends in the end, and not the kind that leave the reader wondering or pondering or thinking. Just the kind the leave the reader feeling like the author forgot to mention what happened with basically the only good part of the story. Sorry, this is probably a rambling review, but that's how the book was for me. Rambling with no sense of purpose.
stefhyena's review against another edition
3.0
I felt keen to learn something about Indian culture and themes, and I tried to argue myself into trying harder to connect with these charcters than I would usually do, to assume my disjunction with them might stem from a "lost in translation" experience. But no, I actually think I found them unrelatable because they were so very rich and casually/blindly privileged. For all that Tara refers to her wealth multiple time in a semi-apologetic way (and she comes across as a semi-apologetic doormat in nearly every interaction she has with other characters too) the poor-little-rich-girl syndrom triumphs over genuine insight.
I appreciated the post-colonial insights, the ambivalent attitude toward the colonising British (hating the way they wielded power but learning over generations to value the culture and cultural capital). Sad but true. And the fate of women to be fragile and beautiful and devote a lot of time and effort to charming, comforting and ornamenting...sure I fet some sadness for them in this, but then on the other hand they were comfortable and pampered enough (oh the privilege of physical beauty) not to really critique even this.
All the nasty criminals seemed to be servants and lower caste and class people who had experienced real material hardship but none of this was acknowledged in the way they were portrayed, it was as if in the mind of the protagonist, and perhaps the author servant classes and castes really are less ethical than the rest of us. Not that anything excuses putting a bomb in a person's house of course.
I loved the story of Tara Lata, the tree bride, I didn't always see her relevance to the whiny and unspirited modern Tara. Perhaps in some way Tara saw herself differently than I did, she saw herself as more assertive and independent than Padma, but I wasn't seeing it in the ready way she submitted and clung her way through several relationships that all seemed toxic and borderline abusive and/or codependent.
I liked Rabi. I would have liked more of his voice. I loved the bombshell dropped about half-way through the book but I can't discuss it because that would be a spoiler. I didn't see it coming but in some ways I liked how it was treated. In other ways it was just one more of too many threads all left half-woven. The book seemed as undecided as the protagonist about its own identity. It seemed conflicted with itself whether to be an introspective pshychological work or a discussion of the way culture traverses time and place (and has to adapt) or a suspense-filled mystery, or just a chick-lit about fashion and romance (though to be fair the romance aspect kept being downgraded to less and less relevant and I did enjoy that aspect of the book).
I think it would make a successful and popular movie with all the colourful characters and costumes and the vivid portrayals of place as well as fast-moving action and plenty of conflict. There's a sort of ADHD quality to the plotting though, maybe therefore it would make better TV with its five minute attention spans and advert breaks. In any case it was a rich book in terms of cultural crossings, and I don't want to let my disappointment that it stopped short of serious insights take away from the gift of seeing some lifestyles and a complex group of cultures so very different from mine.
I appreciated the post-colonial insights, the ambivalent attitude toward the colonising British (hating the way they wielded power but learning over generations to value the culture and cultural capital). Sad but true. And the fate of women to be fragile and beautiful and devote a lot of time and effort to charming, comforting and ornamenting...sure I fet some sadness for them in this, but then on the other hand they were comfortable and pampered enough (oh the privilege of physical beauty) not to really critique even this.
All the nasty criminals seemed to be servants and lower caste and class people who had experienced real material hardship but none of this was acknowledged in the way they were portrayed, it was as if in the mind of the protagonist, and perhaps the author servant classes and castes really are less ethical than the rest of us. Not that anything excuses putting a bomb in a person's house of course.
I loved the story of Tara Lata, the tree bride, I didn't always see her relevance to the whiny and unspirited modern Tara. Perhaps in some way Tara saw herself differently than I did, she saw herself as more assertive and independent than Padma, but I wasn't seeing it in the ready way she submitted and clung her way through several relationships that all seemed toxic and borderline abusive and/or codependent.
I liked Rabi. I would have liked more of his voice. I loved the bombshell dropped about half-way through the book but I can't discuss it because that would be a spoiler. I didn't see it coming but in some ways I liked how it was treated. In other ways it was just one more of too many threads all left half-woven. The book seemed as undecided as the protagonist about its own identity. It seemed conflicted with itself whether to be an introspective pshychological work or a discussion of the way culture traverses time and place (and has to adapt) or a suspense-filled mystery, or just a chick-lit about fashion and romance (though to be fair the romance aspect kept being downgraded to less and less relevant and I did enjoy that aspect of the book).
I think it would make a successful and popular movie with all the colourful characters and costumes and the vivid portrayals of place as well as fast-moving action and plenty of conflict. There's a sort of ADHD quality to the plotting though, maybe therefore it would make better TV with its five minute attention spans and advert breaks. In any case it was a rich book in terms of cultural crossings, and I don't want to let my disappointment that it stopped short of serious insights take away from the gift of seeing some lifestyles and a complex group of cultures so very different from mine.