A review by here_only_for_books
Small Deaths: A Novel by Rijula Das

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.0

🔹 My take: 3/5

TW: Sex trafficking, rape, child abuse

🔸 Small Deaths is based on the backdrop of Shonagachhi, the red light area of Calcutta. It traverses through Blue Lotus brothel and shows lives of prostitutes, their dreams and struggles. Put in this mix some murders, sex trafficking, the lax attitude of police, an NGO / collective and a rogue sadhu cheating in the name of religion. And you get a peek in this intricate dangerous world of lies, deceit and politics. 

💫 This book was released last year in India and was titled as ‘A death in Shonagachhi’. This debut by Rijula Das has won loads of accolades and awards. It’s a brave attempt by author to write about such a sensitive topic and she has handled it quite well. The detailing in book is great. It explores a community and their daily upheavals to survive. It was already mentioned by the author earlier that this is not a murder mystery and hence I did not go into it thinking that, so no disappointments. 

💔  It was easy for me to read through since I understand Indian slang but there are too many words specific to Bengal culture / Hindi that would be difficult for all to understand. I found there were too many characters in the book and hence at some point it was difficult to keep a track of all of them. E.g.: story of Vishal & Deepa or Samsher & his wife were not warranted for the plot. Hence, somewhere in middle, I lost interest. The story picked up pace again in last 20% but I kept getting nervous as to how all the open ends will be tied in few remaining pages. Unfortunately, there was no closure to many parallel running stories and hence I felt reader has been left in a limbo. 

💗 I guess this book could make a good web series where all the intricacies covered by the story can be explored and each character can get its screen space. Since this book is from noir genre, it is not for faint hearted or idealists and readers should make a note of that before jumping into this dark abyss. 

Thank you @netgalley @amazoncrossing for gifting the eARC in exchange of honest review.