Review: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33060.A_Fine_Balance

Goodread rating :  4.32/5
My rating           :  5/5

The cover of this book will tell you a lot about the life of the character in this book. They all live in a fine balance of hope and the desire. This is story set in India during the emergency years in late 1970's. I will agree, this a very fat book. I felt a strong connection with all the character. As the story started to role my emotion like love, rage, sadness, happiness, grew with them.

After reading 800 pages of this book I thought  all the character should have something good happening in the end. But author sticked to reality and show us, how an unprivileged person in the Indian society remains unhappy in his whole life. That part made me very sad.

The best part of this book is undoubtedly the prime minister speech. Author pictured them so well that I felt I am part of the crowd.  The helicopters, cutout. and the combination of helicopter and cutout. everything was so funny.

There are many things I didn't know about the emergency rule. The most weired one was the child control. I know china went through that for last 3 decades. but never imagined that it happened in India at that large scale.

In the end, this book is a masterpiece from Rohinton Mistry. Thanks to author who showed me another side of this world through his mind.

~thechimp

Review : The Hope Factory: A Novel by Lavanya Sankaran

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15798326-the-hope-factory



My rating 2/5
Goodread rating 3.39/5









I was on 100th page of this book and the story looked hopeless. I wanted to give up. Since I have taken the challenge of reading 50 books this year. I picked this book again to give a last try.

The main issue with this book is, author uses very common Indian name for all his main characters. And also he introduces so many new characters with very common name in the subplot. Because of this the whole thing becomes a mess. I usually get lost which character belongs where. I thought Shanta is wife of Anand and Vidya is maid. He could have gone with different name or given a good impressing back story for each character so we can associate the character with some incident.

Gist: This is the story of Anand  a businessman and his maid Kamla a widow. Don't get excited, this is not a love story, this is the story about the struggle they both go through to achieve their dream. This is about, how Anand is muscled by his father-in-law and a politician for buying a 10 acre plot. and how Kamla raises her son through all the hardship.

The other thing irked me was the way authors "high society" people conversation. I have very limited knowledge from the movies and TVs,and i can vouch they don't match with authors depiction.

The two star is for authors true narration of the Indian society. He narrated very well about the political influences on  the businessmen and how election are contested.

Rerview : Shiva's Fire by Suzanne Fisher Staples

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/328863.Shiva_s_Fire













My rating 3/5
Goodread rating 3.9/5



Shiva is the almighty god who destroy the world in order to rebuilt it. Nataraja is another name for lord Shiva. Nataraja means king (raja) of dance (natahanam). In hindu mythology parvathy is sakti the most powerful woman in the universe.

This book is about a girl named Parvathy. She is born during a strange circumstances. She loses her father on same day. From childhood till adult she has been always outcast for the some reason.  From childhood until adult she never had friends. People always make fun infront/back of her. Including her Aunt and cousins. But she was special. She has special powers. She can talk with animals and play with them. She knew how to dance from the young age. She is a great devotee of Nataraja. How this dance changes her fortune makes the crux of this book.

About the book and the narration is very simple. There was nothing “ah” moment. A simple family drama. Rag to rich story. Narrator didn’t exploit the magical power of Parvathi enough. I never felt how much hardship did Parvathy went through. There was no heart melting moment. There were many loose ends to the side story like we don’t know what happen to Nandhini. Or we never knew how Sathya felt about all his responsibilities,or the story starts with parvathy’s father but his story dies away without any creasing sympathy.