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ishtar195's review against another edition
3.0
This book was a delicate a moving exploration into how a young adolescent girl of Indian immigrants in the USA deals with her parents' divorce. There are few texts that deal with this subject for children/young adults, let alone any that focus on the experience of a South Asian community, where divorce remains taboo and stigmatized. I particularly enjoyed this book, as the author took me back to Madras (Chennai) where I lived as a teenager. She brings little details to life - the taste of cloyingly sweet lime soda (Limca), clouds of dust raised by overcrowded buses, yellow stray dogs hovering about tea stalls, the taste of uniquely South Indian vegetarian dishes, drinking tender coconut directly through a straw, the overwhelming smell of disinfectant in hospitals. As the majority of texts of any kind featuring Indian diaspora feature characters from North India, it was extremely refreshing to see Tamil words and expressions being spoken and used. I felt more deeply connected to my own experience growing up in the US as a child of immigrants from India myself. There are also some very common tropes that kids like me are familiar with - kids getting their school uniforms tailored, parents traveling to India to handle the houses and affairs of grandparents who have passed away, relatives and cousins you haven't seen in years coming in and out of the house when you visit. I really like how this book didn't deal with conflict of cultural identity per se, but rather interactions a second-generation individual has with India. I wished that the mother-daughter relationship was more fleshed out, as it seemed hastily concluded towards the end, as did the plot line with the eccentric housekeeper/cook Mami and her health challenges. The relationship families have with their service providers is a close and often conflicting one as a result of class, and that could have been fleshed out more, perhaps not painted in such a rosy light. However, I think the author deals with complicated subject matter (divorce, getting older, death of grandparents, wide gaps in time away from home and relatives) very tactfully and appropriately for a young age reader group.
sarahbowman101's review
3.0
Maya and her mother travel back to India to sell her grandfather's house. Maya isn't super excited about spending most of her summer in India, but quickly makes friends with her cousin and spends time with the housekeeper who has worked with the family for generations, Kamala Mami. It takes Maya's friendship with the housekeeper to discover that Kamala Mami has secrets and is in need of help.
This was short and sweet, but the characters didn't seem very developed, including Maya. Under the theme of American teenager going to India with her family, I thought Monsoon Summer was much better. This could be recommended to a young teen who isn't looking for a romance, even if it is in the subplot context. Fairly forgettable.
This was short and sweet, but the characters didn't seem very developed, including Maya. Under the theme of American teenager going to India with her family, I thought Monsoon Summer was much better. This could be recommended to a young teen who isn't looking for a romance, even if it is in the subplot context. Fairly forgettable.
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