A review by littoral
A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti

Did not finish book.

Jai Chakrabarti’s A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness is a series of 14 short stories exploring the theme of family through the lens of the South Asian immigrant experience. The stories capture a variety of unconventional families - including same-sex couples in forbidden relationships and mixed-race couples not quite on the same wavelength - and doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects like miscarriage and the change of identity that occurs with parenthood. The prose has a lovely rhythm and lyricism that makes each story very readable.

Ultimately, though, I was left with the feeling that I was being strung along from story to story wondering what new trauma or hardship would be the theme of the next. The third person narration common to so many of these stories feels distanced, such that the emotional turns never quite pay off. This can make the story endings feel abrupt; while I don’t mind a story that ends in the middle of the action, these stories sometimes ended before I realized the emotional arc had already come and gone.