A review by cosmicvulture
An Extraordinary Life by Princess Mehrunissa of Rampur

4.0

Four stars because I know the author and can get a little more out of this than the average person picking up the book. She says herself the editing of this book was absolutely terrible. She's right. There's a real problem with jumping around in time, with things sounding very out of place. It's sometimes hard to keep reading without thinking, "why would she write it this way?" Since the book is so short, you can pretty easily just recall where this one paragraph or section SHOULD have gone, and pretend it was there. Putting these issues aside, what an amazing story. I don't think most people, especially Americans, have any concept of the fact that there are people alive right now who had such incredible lives, so different from everything we know now. Grew up a an Indian Princess, got herself a divorce, married a very high ranking fellow in the Pakistani army, met a slew of important figures: Nehru, Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Mao Tse Tung, King Hussein of Jordan, the Shah of Iran, and the list goes on. The woman is nutty and inspiring, and even when she's talking about eschewing the lifestyle of royalty, she still sounds like a princess...