Amodini's Book Reviews

Book Reviews and Recommendations

Book Review : The Village by Nikita Lalwani

Written By: amodini - Jul• 16•13

[amazon_link id=”1400066492″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Village: A Novel[/amazon_link]Title : The Village
Author : Nikita Lalwani
Genre : Contemporary
Publisher : Random House
Pages : 256
Source : Netgalley/Publisher ARC
Rating : 3/5

This book has an interesting setup. Ray Bhullar is a film director with the BBC, in India to make a documentary about Ashwer, an open prison community. With her are a producer, the blonde Serena, and a presenter, Nathan. Ashwer is interesting to them because it is the only open prison system which is succeeding. It is a little village comprised of convicted murderers and their families. One member of each household has committed a murder. In this open community they live almost like they would in the free world. They live in homes with family members – spouses, children, parents and seek work for their livelihood. They are permitted to go outside the community for work in the daytime but must return at dusk. It is seen as a model program to assimilate criminals back into society, and it appears to work, since no resident of Ashwer has yet attempted to run away or commit a crime.

Ray is British-Indian, can speak some Hindi and is fairly conversant with local traditions. Serena and Nathan are total outsiders with no such advantage. The other relatively major character in the book is Nandini, a convicted criminal herself, but one who acts as counselor and is continuing her education in the local university. Nandini and Ray strike up a tenuous friendship.

The book traces Ray’s attempts to familiarize herself with the community, getting people to open up about their thoughts and experience at Ashwer. She wishes to make an honest documentary about Ashwer and it’s people, but Serena and Nathan and indeed Ray’s boss (whom she talks to on the phone) have other ideas. The book’s plot then turns into a question of morality – that of keeping honest in the times of scandals and scoops and exclusive, breaking news. Who really is the villain here – the villagers who are convicted criminals and seen to be unfit for release into society or the three filmmakers who seemingly will sacrifice every scruple to get the “money-shot”?

This book didn’t work for me. Although Lalwani does a good job of portraying locales and atmosphere, I did not like Ray, Serena or Nathan, and it is hard to care about people you don’t like. Ray is the director, but seems weak and wishy-washy, unable to stand her ground until it is too late. While I sympathized with her difficult position with her work-mates, I was frustrated by her utter naivete – why was her character such a babe in the woods? Did her work in the media, her 27 years on capricious earth teach her nothing? Ray’s character seemed very unrealistic to me. Serena and Nathan were plain unpleasant – she was cold, unfeeling and critical, and he a slimy, sinister no-good loser spewing negativity. The plot itself seemed jaded, very been-there-done-that; it might be that I have watched many films with just this kind of fight for integrity.

The book never quite took off. I kept waiting for things to get to a head, but they never did. I realized that the journey was the destination, so to speak, but it never quite got interesting enough.

Book Review : A Murder in Passing by Mark de Castrique

Written By: amodini - Jul• 02•13

[amazon_link id=”1464201498″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]A Murder in Passing: A Sam Blackman Mystery (Sam Blackman Series)[/amazon_link]Title : Murder in Passing
Author : Mark de Castrique
Genre : Mystery
Pages : 250
Publisher : Poisoned Pen Press
Source : Netgalley/Publisher ARC
Rating : 3.8/5

Detectives Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson haven’t had much luck with work; cases aren’t coming their way . To while away this time, they join Nakayla’s mushroom hunting club on an afternoon adventure on the lands of the historic “Kingdom of the Happy Land”, a freed-slave commune. Sam in his search for edible mushrooms, falls and stumbles on an old skeleton. The police are called in, and Sam and Nakayla relegate the mystery solving to them.

However, soon after they are approached by a Marsha Montgomery who wants them to locate an old historic photograph of her mother’s which went missing sometime back. The photograph taken at a historic phase in time, and by a renowned photographer, could be worth a considerable amount now. Interestingly Marsha and her mother then lived on the same historic land where the skeleton has been found, and her father disappeared roughly around the same time.

Things heat up quite suddenly when Marsha’s eighty-five year old mother Lucille is arrested for the murder of Jimmy Lang, the skeleton which Sam stumbled upon. Is the discovery of the skeleton and Marsha’s sudden interest in a long-forgotten photograph connected, or is it all just a big coincidence?

This book is part of Mark de Castrique’s “Sam Blackman” series – this is the 4th book – but reads well as a standalone mystery. Although there are references to previous events they are fairly well-explained, so you actually don’t feel left-out. Sam Blackman, his partner Nakayla Robertson and lawyer Hewitt Donaldson are nicely-etched out characters and very likeable. Sam has a great sense of humor which comes through in his depiction of people and events, since the book is told in first person, from his point-of-view. Nakayla who is African-American is strong and sensible and also Sam’s lover.

I liked the way the mystery came together in pieces – there’s the skeleton, Marsha’s story, and the sub-text of racialism so prevalent in those times (1960s). There is the mystery to be sure, but what makes it believable are the characters and their motives. Castrique builds up a nice timeline of events and gives us a look-see into how things were then. His writing is rich with details and history. The plot and the motives are sound, and the author very skillfully binds all this together.

A very interesting mystery with ample twists and turns, this kept me reading. I’m recommending this book, and also putting the rest of the books in this series on my to-read list.

Wordless Wednesdays #21

Written By: amodini - Jun• 26•13

Parc Guell

Book Review : Painted Hands by Jennifer Zobair (June 2013)

Written By: amodini - Jun• 19•13

[amazon_link id=”1250027004″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Painted Hands: A Novel[/amazon_link]Title : Painted Hands
Author : Jennifer Zobair
Genre : South-Asian Fiction
Publisher : Thomas Dunne Books (Macmillan)
Pages : 336
Source : Netgalley/Publisher ARC
Rating : 3.8/5

Painted Hands is about three young women struggling with their life and religion. Zainab Mir, Amra Abbas and Rukan are three young Muslim women born and brought up in the US. All three are fairly modern and moderate Muslims. While Rukan’s story is touched upon, this novel is mainly about Zainab, Amra and Hayden – Amra’s office colleague. Amra is a lawyer, working unearthly hours at her law firm in the hopes of making partner. Zainab is a political worker, and the main person behind Republican Senator Eleanor Winthrop-Smith’s election campaign. Hayden, also a lawyer, comes from a troubled family background and is struggling with her own faith, and attraction towards Islam.

Both Zainab and Amra have tireless zeal for work; their careers are an important part of their lives. But they also come from cultures which are traditionally patriarchal, where a woman is expected to kow-tow to the demands of family and household first and foremost. Zainab, who is scorned by traditionalists as an aberrant Muslim, for wearing supposedly skimpy clothing, and consorting with supposedly irreligious people, has given up trying to prove her faith; she does what she likes, and everyone else can lump it. Amra on the other hand, is in love with Mateen, the son of family friends, and finally marries him. Post-wedding, she has a hard time being the “good” wife and the willing-to-go-the-extra-mile lawyer. Hayden is more and more attracted to more-than-casual-acquaintance Fadi, and distanced by Amra, and influenced by religious zealots like Fareeda, takes a step which will change the course of her life.

This is a very well-written book. The characters are believable.  Zobair treads the fine line of making them appear modern and progressive Muslims, rejecting fundamentalist, regressive notions, but still maintaining love and respect for their culture and heritage. We do not generally get to read of such moderates, so it was quite a breath of fresh air to hear the views of these feminists. Apart from the religious aspect, the women in this novel struggle for basic equality, because that is what it boils down to – the idea that one’s life is one’s own and not subject to expectations – cultural or otherwise. We can call gild it, give it the superficial once-over and declare ourselves progressives, but are we really? In real life there is no absolute black and white, but a lot of grey. Zainab, Amra and Hayden find that out once they step into the system, Amra by marrying into it, Zainab by thwarting it and Hayden by idolizing a religion she does not understand.

I liked the fact that Zainab and Amra stood strong even when under pressure. Zainab has the courage of her beliefs, as is evidenced by her sparring with the religious fundamentalists of a mosque she goes to. She identifies as a Muslim but does not kowtow to the regressive tenets the mullahs advocate; she comes under attack from both Islamic and Christian conservatives – one thinks her not Islamic enough, and the other finds her too Islamic. Amra, meanwhile, puts up a brave face under pressure but begins to suffer, physically and mentally, under all the conflicting demands – I felt for her.

The women in this book are  Muslim feminists, a term so rarely heard in mainstream media, it might as well not exist. Zainab, Amra, Rukan and Hayden wanting no more than to live their lives as they see fit, are buffeted by unreasonable demands; society and family send out subliminal diktats on their duties as “good” women – how to look pleasing and non-threatening, appear ready to obey, and drop all their aspirations and worked-for-goals when told to do so. Feminism is often thought to be “outside” the system, but there must be a middle ground, or so Amra believes – a way to be true to oneself and one’s dignity, while maintaining familial and personal relationships. It is a hard question to tackle and there are no easy answers, which makes this book even more worthwhile to read.

There are a few sprinkled oddities in the book – like the fact that Amra’s NYU professor mother, for all her education and joy in her work, appears to be rather diminutive in the assertion of her (progressive?) beliefs, and very ready to “persuade” Amra into matrimony, something that Amra’s career cannot handle just then, or her annoying habit of prefacing each sentence she says to Amra with “beti”. Beti mean daughter, but does one address one’s daughter with that, every single time?

“Painted Hands” was an interesting read, a look-see into the other, little-known side of Islam, from the female point of view. Recommended.

Book Review : White Trash by Alexandra Allred

Written By: amodini - Jun• 11•13

[amazon_link id=”B00D8G4GIU” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]White Trash (White Series)[/amazon_link]Title : White Trash
Author : Alexandra Allred
Publisher : Writer’s Coffee Shop
Genre : Contemporary Fiction
Pages : 286
Source : Netgalley / Publisher ARC
Rating : 4.2/5

Thia Franks has returned to her small hometown with her tail between her legs. Desperate to leave as a youngster, she left to study at Duke. Along with her degree, those 4 years have brought some hard times too. So when it starts to go south, Thia is persuaded to go back home to her mother’s house in Granby, Texas, and work at the local town newspaper, The Recorder.

Granby seems to be the same, filled with the same people with unchanging mind-sets, judging her and being judged in turn. Thia is conscious of the way she is being perceived – that for all her high-talk she has ended up like the other losers – back home, right where she started, with a child in tow and a husband nowhere in sight.

She settles into her old life grudgingly. Old friends have moved on with their tired, desperate lives. The multi-racial town seems calm and uneventful on the surface, but is a hotbed of abuse, racism, incest, drug-use and gunrunning under the hood. When a hispanic man is severely injured in a grisly prank, tensions get heightened. Then one of Thia’s Afircan-American friends is murdered and she starts getting mysterious phone-calls hinting at the identity of the murderer.

This book is an atmospheric account of small-town life in rural Granby. We are introduced to the many local townspeople from Thia’s perspective. There is Thia’s family – her mother and aunt CiCi, squirrel hating, trigger-happy geriatric neighbor Ms. Riley, the trash-man Bubba Peters whom CiCi has a thing for. There is the local lawyer, doctor, and a bunch of no-good youngsters. There is also the small police-force led by Chief Teague who has quirky female officers – Officer Tina Wolfe and Officer Rosa Fox – on the force. Partners and steadfast friends, they are able policewoman tackling the myriad problems of country life – fainting goats one day and a criminal on cocaine another, with humor.

Thia is no longer the wild child that she used to be as a youngster and her 4 year long foray into the outside world has widened her perspective so she is able to see the narrow-mindedness and petty rumor-mongering for what it is. Surrounded by folk with dissimilar views, Thia has a hard time curbing her tongue and her temper at work. As the protagonist, we get to hear of her philosophy on trash:

You can’t live in the South, particularly Texas, and not hear that word a dozen times over in just one day. The way a body might walk, talk, dress, or smile could put you on the trash-o-meter. How you wore your makeup, touched another person, or named your baby were indicative of your trashiness.

If you haven’t lived in a small Southern town, Allred brings it to life for you. There are many characters in this book but all were fleshed out beautifully. We root for Thia herself because she is a bold, upright sensible young woman who cannot tolerate racism and injustice. She also has a spry sense of humor, and we get to read her tongue-in-cheek accounts of the townspeople. Also endearing are her mother and aunt, while Officers Wolfie and Foxie add spice to the mix with their no-nonsense philosophy of hating everyone equally.

Allred excels in creating a sprawling story with nuanced details. The many characters in the book are tied through to the main story with well-etched out back-stories. The book’s tone feels authentic. Allred displays impeccable command of the story’s pace – she balances out the humorous, quixotic segue-ways about life in Granby with plot elements which keep the book chugging away. White Trash is well-paced, sauntering through Granby giving us a good feel for the place and its people, but ratcheting up the tension as things hot up.

This was an engrossing read. If you liked “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, I’d highly recommend White Trash.

Book Review : Pastors’ Wives by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen (April 2013)

Written By: amodini - Jun• 05•13

[amazon_link id=”0452298822″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Pastors' Wives: A Novel[/amazon_link]Title : Pastor’s Wives
Author : Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

Publisher : Plume Books
Genre : Contemporary Fiction
Pages : 359
Source : Publisher
Rating : 3.5/5

Candace Green, Ginger Green and Ruthie matters are pastors’ wives. Their husbands work for the Greenleaf mega-church. Aaron Green is the senior pastor and his wife pretty much runs the organization. Ginger is Candace’s daughter-in-law while Ruthie is the wife of newly hired pastor Jerry Matters. All three women face their own challenges and work to overcome them. Essentially the book is about life for three “chosen” women. Like everyone else their lives have ups and downs too, and “Pastors’ Wives” is about how they make peace with them.

This book is briskly paced. We learn about each of the women via chapters devoted to their points-of-view. Candace is a sharp, astute dragon of a woman. Her bidding is done. She has strong likes and dislikes, and Ginger is one of the latter. Ginger faces her own quandary when her unsavory past comes reeling out into the limelight. In need of support Ginger turns to her husband Timothy, but he seems to put church above everything else. Atheist Ruthie thrust from being a Wall Street whiz’s wife to being a woman whose husband has found God, finds her new role hard to accept.

The author does a good job in fleshing out each of the women – they felt real to me. I like Ginger most of all; her problem seemed the most pressing and her character seemed to show true courage. Candace seemed to be the ruthless head of a large organization. This seemed a realistic portrayal because in such a position, no wilting wall-flower will do. Petite Candace is iron-willed and wily, and goes after what she wants.

One can tell a lot about a couple by the way they fight. Aaron joked; Candace bristled. Aaron held forth; Candace reasoned. Aaron scowled; Candace stood firm. Never did she raise her voice. Never did she give way to passion and unreason. Over the years she had honed her ability to clear her mind of murky recrimination and focus on the issue at hand. She never, ever lost.

Meanwhile, Ruthie, the new kid on the block, wants to support her husband as much as she can, and is coerced into “volunteering” her time. She is doing the church’s work, but accepting and open as she is, her new-found religious duties cannot quiet the questions in her mind.

While the majority of the book was fine, I felt that the solutions presented at the end were watered down; things ended on an unrealistically rosy note. The problems these ladies faced were earth-shaking, life-changing ones, and I did not expect their lives to settle down pat, like pieces of a snug jigsaw puzzle. While the three women seem strong and intelligent, and show streaks of independence, in the end it seemed like they made their peace for “world good” – everyone lives happily everafter.That kind of lessened the impact of the book, so it ends up with 3.5 stars instead of the 4 I’d expected to give.

Pastors’ Wives was an interesting look into the workings of a mega-church and the effort and will it takes to run large religious organizations. I read through this book pretty quickly; the pace and the characters drew me in. Overall a  quick, pleasant read.

Wordless Wednesdays #20

Written By: amodini - Jun• 05•13

Street View perspective of Torre Agbar building

Book Review : The Honey Thief by Najaf Mazari & Robert Hillman

Written By: amodini - May• 29•13

[amazon_link id=”B008EKMBD2″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Honey Thief: Fiction[/amazon_link]Title : The Honey Thief
Author : Najaf Mazari, Robert Hillman
Genre : Literary / Folklore
Publisher : Viking
Pages : 290
Source : Publisher
Rating : 4/5

The Honey Thief is about the Hazara people of Afghanistan. My interest in this book was piqued when I remembered that Hassan, one of the characters in Khalid Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” was also Hazara. In this book, the author Najaf Mazari, himself of the Hazara, relates his tales of his homeland and his people, to Hillman. Hillman then writes them up, hence the dual credit on authorship.

The book has 13 chapters, out of which 11 contain stories. The first chapter is titled Hazara, and serves as an introduction. The thirteenth talks of the food of the Hazara people. The book ends with recipes and a glossary of terms.

The stories are interconnected in that some characters feature in more than one story, although the stories themselves are separate. The tales are diverse; so one story is about Abbas Behishti and his relationship with his dearly beloved and respected grandfather Esmail, while another, the title story, is about Abbas’s apprenticeship into bee-keeping. A third is about Abbas’s journey to meet Baba Mazari, the leader of the Hazara, and do his bidding. Although on the surface, each story is about a particular event or happening, they also describe Hazara life, history, hardships and philosophy.

Afghanistan has had a tumultuous history, from being ruled by oppressive Shahs, to being subjected to Russian invasions. The author tells us that under each ruler, the Hazara have suffered; their lands have been stolen, their people killed and tortured. And in these trying circumstances, we are told, the Hazara have survived, eked out meager livings in hostile environments, on infertile lands, with grace and fortitude.

In my country of Afghanistan everything is arranged in such a way that your heart is broken again and again. It is not only wars that break your heart; it is the arguments that last a thousand years, the age-old jealousies, and of course, the poverty.

The people in these stories are Hazara and live in Hazarajat, an area in central Afghanistan. From the descriptions it appears that the area is ravaged by unjust rulers and mired in poverty. The people appear isolated, cut-off from the world at large. Progress of the outside world seeps through into these rural lands, in bits and pieces – a mention of an American magazine (Saturday Evening Post) here, and the use of a motorcycle (“Yamaha is the best for Afghanistan”) there. The families in these stories are large and remain together in small villages/communities, the men often having more than one wife.

The stories are written in simple un-convoluted language so as to give a “spoken” feel. It is almost as though these are fables, told by an elder to other younger members of his community, a passing on of heritage if you will. Indeed, the tone of the book reminds me of the Indian tradition of story-telling (a little like the Panchatantra and Jataka Tales although those are more pointed and stress on moral lessons), history passed on by word-of-mouth from grandparent to grandchild. It is then a privilege to be able to almost hear these wisdom filled, nuanced tales, as though from the skilled story-teller himself, a storyteller who conveys to us his love and affection for his ancestral roots and his people.

I was entranced by this charming, comforting book and looked forward to reading it every night before I went to bed. What a wonderful way to learn about the culture of a people! Highly recommended.

Wordless Wednesdays #19

Written By: amodini - May• 22•13

Metropolis Building, Madrid, Spain

Book Review : Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani

Written By: amodini - May• 18•13

[amazon_link id=”1451660472″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Equal of the Sun: A Novel[/amazon_link]Title : Equal of the Sun
Author : Anita Amirezvani
Genre : Historical
Publisher : Scribner (Simon & Schuster)
Pages : 464
Source : Publisher
Rating : 4/5

Anita Amirrezvani’s previous novel “The Blood of Flowers” wove an intricate story of a female carpet-maker who must make her way in a strongly patriarchal world. The “Equal of the Sun” tells us of another strong woman, Princess Pari Khan Khanoom Safavi , the daughter of Iran’s king, Tahmasb Shah. Pari, contrary to the expected roles of women in those days, is very interested in politics and governance, and serves as a respected advisor to her father.

When the Shah dies without deciding upon an heir, the kingdom is thrown into chaos, and Pari tries as best as she can to keep the unruly courtiers and nobles in place until a Shah can be decided upon. Pari’s elder cousin, the hitherto exiled Prince Isma’il comes to power, but treats Pari as an outcaste, diminishing her powers and her stature in the royal court. When the new Shah’s lax governance and unjust rule of law become obvious for everyone to see, Pari attempts to remove him and install a more pliable ruler to the throne.

Pari was writing a letter on a wooden lap desk. She wore a blue short-sleeved silk robe covered with red brocade, belted with a white sash woven with bands of gold – a treasure itself – which she had tied into  a thick, stylish knot at her waist. Her long black hair was loosely covered by a scarf printed with golden arabesques, topped with a ruby ornament that caught the light and drew my eye to her forehead, which was long, smooth and rounded as a pearl, as if her intelligence needed more room than most. People say that one’s future is inscribed on the forehead at birth – Pari’s forehead announced a future that was rich and storied.

The book is narrated by an eunuch, Javaher. Javaher’s father was a highly regarded accountant in the Shah’s employ, but was unjustly assassinated, Javaher believes, under false accusations of cheating. He thus longs to clear his father’s name, and for that reason gains employment in the Shah’s court, subsequently becoming Pari’s trusted servant.

Where “The Blood of Flowers” was a history of the common folk of Iran, “Equal of the Sun” is an expansive look at the royalty, and the lies, deceptions and subterfuge that form a part of the royal court. In both cases, the story centers around a strong female figure displaying great courage and ability, but born into a society where women are little more than male appendages, restricted to the harem. This book was engrossing. I knew where it was heading (thanks to Wikipedia) but even so could not put it down, owing to the author’s skillful depiction of the characters. Pari and Javaher  are interesting, enigmatic characters brought to life in this intricate history lesson of a book.

I felt for Pari, powerful princess though she is. Amirrezvani manages to flesh out her precarious existence after her father’s death, striving to become just powerful enough; too little and she is of no consequence, and too much and she gains enemies. Women are facing this struggle even today in the workplace – how to be “womanly” and strong without being seen as “aggressive”. Jahaver also has a sympathetic tale to tell, and we listen of course, but the book is about Pari.

The prose is lush and vivid. The author describes people, their clothes and surroundings in great detail – we get a feel for the soft carpets underfoot, we admire the tapestries on the wall, and are treated to descriptions of the silks, jewelry, accoutrements and apartments and lives of the many women of the Shah’s court. There is some scattered poetry and many references to Ferdawsi’s Shahnameh.

This is a rich wonderfully detailed book, and an absolute pleasure to read. Highly recommended.