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_inge_'s review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
This book is not my cup of tea. The blurb promises a tale about an immigrant from India to the USA, who "keeps falling in love, not just with women, but with literature and radical politics'. What we get is a thoroughly male gaze on women and a couple of relationships, he takes us through his university years where he seems to be interested in what his supervisor and idol suggests is interesting, and the politics is not his own but the people he reads and writes about.
The things I appreciated are the flash backs to his old life in India, the cultural clashes and some of the people he researched. The book made me google things, like the photographs of Raghu Rai and the real people he talks about. I didn't care for the relationships he described - probably because he didn't really describe the women as rounded characters.
I don't know why Obama chose this as a book of the year. Maybe because he is mentioned a couple of times?
The things I appreciated are the flash backs to his old life in India, the cultural clashes and some of the people he researched. The book made me google things, like the photographs of Raghu Rai and the real people he talks about. I didn't care for the relationships he described - probably because he didn't really describe the women as rounded characters.
I don't know why Obama chose this as a book of the year. Maybe because he is mentioned a couple of times?
bovjrs's review against another edition
The first chapter was decent, but it got too slow for me. Thinking of revisiting it in a few months.
awodeyar's review against another edition
5.0
Be generous to your characters, whether in stories or in life.
kdhanda's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this book, reminiscent of graduate school from the perspective of an Indian student. There were parts I could really relate to, the sense of confusion and loss, the feeling of being suspended between two worlds, the jokes that one does not quite understand and laughs before the punchline. I loved the graduate advisor, Ehsan, he reminded me of my own advisor, Iqbal Ali, that I looked up to. The book reads like a memoir and is segmented by his three lovers and the influence these women played on the narrators own maturity and growth. I wanted this book to never end. Hoping to see him in person at a book reading since he is at Vassar.
katemilkshakes's review against another edition
1.0
Meanders around with a sort of smug tone about how smart he is, all while basically stomping on women’s lives and casually mentioning it as an afterthought. Nope.
kgraham10's review against another edition
1.0
The review said this book was a "painfully truthful meditation about exile, grad school, sex, and the South Asian man." It just felt like a painful essay on sex and the South Asian man.
millieu's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
sujata's review against another edition
3.0
Mixed feelings. I loved all the parts about his reflections on being new in America in the 90s and beyond. I loved the hampers of adult Kailash. I was not as into his actual story but also recognize that is part of the traditional story and also does also reflect much of being new to the states from India. So mixed feelings!
mamaorgana80's review against another edition
4.0
A reader-writer’s book full of wandering thoughts and purposeful loose ends. Lovely.