Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran

Moran can certainly write an engaging story.  A story involving Queen Lakshmi, who I'd never even heard of before, opened me up to a side of history that I'm very much interested in.  And looking forward to finding more books about.

Sati is the elder daughter of a deaf father and a mother who died in childbirth.  With just her little sister for company and an abusive grandmother to hound her, she is saved from a brothel to be trained by her father and a neighbor for a spot in the Queen's guard.  Positions come open rarely and she trains for year before being accepted in and finding a whole new arena in which she must do battle.  And with the British slowly taking over the different kingdoms of India, politics are just as dangerous as they ever have been.

Sati is not a very strong character.  Well, in some ways.  She certainly trains well and does what she is told, but I never really feel like she ever stands up for herself in this novel.  Yes, traditions and the culture don't let her do a lot of things.  But with her intelligence and skills she should have been a little more capable of doing things for herself.  Regardless, she still is an interesting character to read about and you can sympathize with her.  Queen Lakshmi herself we only see a little of, and I was intrigued, but I was also surprised by how "bound" her character was by her station in life.  Again, that might just be the constraints of culture though.

The book's premise was a good one.  Few people (and I'm including myself) have ever heard of an all female guard in India, let alone one in previous history.  I thought that this story was a good way of explaining how it worked and all some of the other practices in India.  I don't know how historically accurate it is, since I've never studied it before, but I'm guessing it's pretty close and it seemed to be well thought out.  There is some violence in the novel, but not overly much.  And there is mention of brothel and rape.  There's actually some sad, anger-inducing scenes involving that actually.  But for as angry as it made me, I realized that it was probably an accurate reflection of history.

A very interesting book and engaging read.  For a little big on Laskmi's guard, this is one to dig into.

**This book was received as an advanced reviewer's copy**

Rebel Queen
Copyright 2015
352 pages

Sideways on a Scooter by Miranda Kennedy

This book reads more as fiction than non-fiction to me.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's just the tone.  But Kennedy's experiences in India are interesting, but not life like.  Even though it is real life.  Maybe it's just me.

Having parents who had done some traveling and were unconventional in their own right, Kennedy moves to India in her twenties where she hopes to make a living as a journalist.  While there, she experiences the culture of her city, sees the struggles that women still have in a not-quite-modern-yet India, and makes a few friends of her own that come from very different backgrounds.

This isn't really a book about Alexander.  Sure she tells you about her life in India and the apartment she has and a few personal details, but the majority of the book are about the ladies that she makes acquaintances with.  There's Geeta, the somewhat modern but longing for a traditional marriage, friend of Alexander's.  In complete contrast is Parvati, who dresses traditional but holds very non-traditional views and practices.  There's her maid Radha who may do the cleaning but has a lot of pride in her family.  And several others who all have different experiences as women living in India.

This book meanders with no clear path except time.  It spans a couple of years and jumps around in detail.  Conversations are done in full detail while months can drift by in just a few sentences.  And I think that's what made it feel like fiction to me.  I enjoyed reading about the women Kennedy met but I do wish more detail would have been given to the part of India that she stayed in as far as scenery and more vivid food descriptions.  But it was still a good read.  It has a nice pace and a lovely way of describing the people in it.

I wouldn't call this a book on India.  Or even a travel book.  But it is a book about a bunch of different women and their lives and happens to be set in India.

Sideways on a Scooter
Copyright 2011
342 pages

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Ugh. I just could not get through this book easily. It took me forever because I would use any excuse to put it down and not read anymore. Which is never a good way to read through a book.

Sai has been brought up by her grandfather after her parents are killed. He is a distant man, whose only love appears to be his dog and Sai's main companions are the cook and the elderly sisters who see to her education. The cook has a son in America, who is struggling to make ends meet and achieve the greatness he believes can be found there. And then Sai has another tutor as she grows, a young man she is fond of who is to help her with physics. But he is pretty lost himself.

There are a lot of people to keep track of in this book. And sadly, I didn't really care about any of them. Not even Sai, who is one of the more sympathetic characters in the book. The judge, I found almost useless, even though everything seemed to revolve around him. His forays into his past didn't add anything for me and I couldn't even hate him despite his violence and apathy. Because he just didn't matter that much. The rest of the characters had briefer histories and not a lot of time, excepting the cook and his son Biju. But again, those felt more like interruptions of the book rather than part of the story.

Maybe it was all of the apathy. Maybe it was just the plot not really meandering anywhere. But this book was very hard to sink into. The language was nice enough. Desai definitely has a unique voice. But instead of making a book that I could care about, she just uses pretty language to talk about people that aren't that interesting. And while she does introduce a lot of political elements into the book, they felt forced and nobody has a positive description. From Americans, to Europeans, to Indians, nobody seems to have admirable traits in this book. I realize it's just a story of people struggling to get by, but if I wanted bad news with people I'm disconnected to, I'd just turn on the news. When I read a book I want to be able to understand the characters and feel for them.

Maybe I'm too picky, but this wasn't for me. I can't even really judge who this would be a good book for, but I'm sure someone out there likes it.

The Inheritance of Loss
Copyright 2006
324 pages

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

There is a little bit of truth in this novel. The author Gregory David Roberts, took elements from his own life and placed them into his main character Lin. So one has to wonder, how much is true and how much is fiction.

Shantaram features Lin, an escaped convict from Australia who goes to Bombay to gain his freedom. Once there, he starts out just exploring the area and meeting new friends and gradually moves to the slums where he becomes a doctor of sorts and cares for the poor people there. But being an escaped convict the draw of crime is strong to him and he starts working in other pursuits that get him into more trouble than he could ever imagine. Combine that with his love for Karla, a myserious woman living in Bombay as well and he isn't quite sure what he wants with his life. Deep down he wants to do something good, but he finds it hard to set himself on the right path.

Lin is Roberts. Both escaped convicts who have traveled far they have an altruistic streak that sometimes makes them do bad things for good reasons. As a recovered junkie, Lin to is susceptible to weakness. And he faces many struggles within the novel. I do have to say that I couldn't see what he saw in Karla. I didn't find her particularly fascinating as a character. And the group of friends he hung out with, they were awfully philosophical for criminals. I'm not saying that all criminals aren't intelligent, but it seemed odd to me the particular dynamics of this group. I also should say that I didn't really feel a particular connection to any character in this novel, but it was still interesting to read about them.

Its a long meandering plot. Honestly, the book can get too long in some ways but it was still pretty good. It felt like it could all happen in real life, which given the author's past, could be very true. It does make me wonder about Bombay though, from this book you would assume that the whole place is just crime ridden and black market and somehow I doubt that its all that way. The story was heartfelt for sure and the realism made it a good read. I felt like I was there and that's a testament to Robert's writing.

An interesting book that reads real. I would recommend it for anyone who is interested in different cultures or the struggle of everyday life.

Shantaram
Copyright 2003
933 pages

Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee

This novel was not what I expected. When I first picked it up I had thought it would be about a woman's life in India. And to an extent it was, however, it took a twist and brought the woman to America.

The main character is a woman named Jasmine. Throughout the story she goes by several other names including Jane, Jyoti, and Jase. Each name she has seems to bring its own life with it and she has several different periods of time in her life.

She starts out as a young girl in India where she marries at fifteen. When her husband is murdered in a bombing, she travels to America with the intent of committing suicide at the college campus he was to go to. However, she is stopped by a fierce determination to live after a hardship befalls her.

Without giving away too much of the novel I don't want to give greater detail to the events of her life. She lives with several people performing different tasks at each and this storyline flits back and forth with one of her final stays, with a handicapped man whose child she is carrying.

I was impressed with this novel. While I originally wanted to dislike it for not being what I expected I found that it told an impressive story. One might not think much of the hardships of one woman, but this book made you care about her and at the end I was rooting for her to take a certain path in life.

The language is clear and doesn't get overly wordy. Even though a lot of the concepts are from India Mukherjee makes them easy to understand. Overall, it was a great story.

Jasmine
Published in 1989
241 pages