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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
Timely fairy tale for me to read, everything gets neatly tied up, family comes around, all good
This felt like a particularly dramatic medical soap opera. In some places the medical knowledge was well-versed, while in others it was confusingly misinformed (I’m not sure the author entirely understands what an abscess is). The most frustrating part for me was the lack of insight into what it’s like to study and work in medicine. It really felt like the author’s field research was limited to Greys Anatomy (the TV drama, not the textbook).
emotional
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Anil and Leena, childhood friends growing up in India face two different paths in life. Anil moves to America to pursue his dream of being a doctor. He feels like he doesn’t belong there, but at the same time he feels that he no longer belongs in India either. There is an “undeniable push and pull between the land that had borne him and the one he had chosen.” “He was a dweller of two lands.” We follow his journey in America and his trips back to India and the inner turmoil he suffers.
Meanwhile, Leena is married to a horrible man and suffers greatly. She endures some truly horrible things. Without spoiling anything, I was really rooting for these two to end up together in the end, but I won’t say if they do or not.
I loved the colorful and vibrant setting in India. I sympathized with Anil’s struggles and I hoped for Leena to escape her horrible marriage. This was a great book!
Meanwhile, Leena is married to a horrible man and suffers greatly. She endures some truly horrible things. Without spoiling anything, I was really rooting for these two to end up together in the end, but I won’t say if they do or not.
I loved the colorful and vibrant setting in India. I sympathized with Anil’s struggles and I hoped for Leena to escape her horrible marriage. This was a great book!
I don’t like leaving books unfinished. Even when a novel isn’t going anywhere, I inch along in the hopes that at some point the novel will turn around, the plot will make sense, the characters will come alive, and the book will mean something to me after I’ve finished the read. And so, despite the effect reading this book has had on my personal wellbeing and sanity, I finished the April Seriously Planning bookclub selection, Shilpa Somaya Gowda’s book “The Golden Son” today. It took weeks to get to 20% of the novel because it was too painful to read more than a few pages at a time, but over the past couple of days I read during every spare moment and in the evenings in order to complete the read. Today I finished the book, and I never want to see or talk about this book again. It’s been a while since I’ve disliked a book so strongly.
Gowda’s first book, “Secret Daughter” is one of my favourite novels and I loved the complex characters and rich plot when I first read the book. It’s a book I’ve recommended to many many people, and so when I discovered that Gowda’s second novel “The Golden Son” was published in 2015 I suggested it for the Seriously Planning bookclub. Whatever the plot of the novel, I was sure we would enjoy our reading session because it was a Gowda novel, and I thought that meant the novel would be good.
I was wrong. The Golden Son is flat, painful, and altogether an uninteresting read.
The full review of this book can be found on my blog here:https://seriouslyplanning.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/life-is-too-short-for-terrible-books-on-reading-the-golden-son-by-shilpa-somaya-gowda/
Gowda’s first book, “Secret Daughter” is one of my favourite novels and I loved the complex characters and rich plot when I first read the book. It’s a book I’ve recommended to many many people, and so when I discovered that Gowda’s second novel “The Golden Son” was published in 2015 I suggested it for the Seriously Planning bookclub. Whatever the plot of the novel, I was sure we would enjoy our reading session because it was a Gowda novel, and I thought that meant the novel would be good.
I was wrong. The Golden Son is flat, painful, and altogether an uninteresting read.
The full review of this book can be found on my blog here:https://seriouslyplanning.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/life-is-too-short-for-terrible-books-on-reading-the-golden-son-by-shilpa-somaya-gowda/
I am fascinated by books that allow the reader a window into other cultures. This book didn’t disappoint as in addition to characters living in rural India, it shares Anil’s experience of living with one foot in India and one in North America pursuing his medical degree.
Very good. I really enjoyed reading this. This is what good fiction does: it gives insight into the nature of humanity- sometimes loving, and flawed other times utterly hateful and malevolent. The pacing was excellent. The characters were flawed, but still likable. I'm sure others will be able to pick it apart, but for me, I enjoyed every moment of it.
It was a good book and interesting story. Enjoyed reading it and may have stayed up too late to read more.
A very satisfying novel by the author of "The Secret Daughter," which was also an excellent read. This book was especially illuminating in portraying the experiences of an educated Indian immigrant to the U.S. I found some of the later parts of this novel to be a little too reminiscent of a soap opera, and characters believed in ways (e.g., ultimately accepting responsibility for their own wrongdoings) that I found hard to believe. All in all, however, a well-written novel, and one that I found hard to put down.
This was a great book. I actually liked it better than Secret Daughter, which is the author's first, much praised novel. The characters were allowed to develop much more fully in this book, and the story benefited greatly from that. The plot was also better in my opinion, with more traumatic events but also still covering a wide range of themes like responsibility in the Indian culture, the ideals and traditions of Indian society, finding where you belong and fighting for what's right. Overall a great read.