zavey 's review for:

Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup

2.0

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So, I've obviously seen this film first, and of course it's never the way round you should do things. Book first then movie, right? Well, if I'd read the book first, then I would never have been enticed to watch the movie and would have therefore missed out. This book is ... not good. I mean, the concept's there and... Yeah, that's it. Other than the plot, which I like (which is why I liked the film), it's just lacking. Even the plot, which is the best part, has been changed a lot in the film, for the better. The pace was all over the place. The author managed to shoehorn a million different grievances into one poor boy's life without really feeling the gravitas of each thing, but would spend pages and pages describing a film plot or an old war story that is irrelevant. The characters were two dimensional, with either good characters or bad characters. Ironically, the main character was neither, but not in an interesting way, he definitely fancied himself as something of a hero. I don't mind the 'bad' things that he did, it was more that his general attitude was kind of aloof? Indifferent? But I don't think the author was intending this. Maybe it was just the lack of detail in general. I guess he just annoyed me. The writing style was pretty basic, kind of amateurish, maybe better suited for a younger audience? But the content definitely wasn't. There were questionable aspects, like the weird depictions of homosexuality, with it either being perverse or immoral in some way (ie. adulterous or paedophilic). And all the many incidences of covert misogyny, sometimes disguised by male saviourism - "she doesn't deserve this treatment and I will save her!" kind of stuff - with every woman in the story being either in distress or just a bad person. There were so many horrible scenes, mostly involving women. Yeah, this guy's life is not the best but he seemed to get out of things pretty much scot-free most of the time, but the amount of women around him who were abused made me want any of them to have won the jackpot in the end. Spoiler, he wins money on a gameshow. I don't think that's a spoiler because that's the name of the novel. Does he get to keep it? Well, I'll keep you guessing there. Or just watch the film. Actually yes, do that.

Oh, one good thing I got from this book was I kept getting the song 'Jai Ho' featuring the Pussycat Dolls stuck in my head because of the book cover. That was alright actually.