Beautifully written. An excellent read.

I wasn't sure what to think about this book when I finished. While it was beautifully written, the plot was sometimes hard to understand. Yet, weeks later as I think about it, I appreciate more the intricate story of the twins Rahel and Estha, and what happened when their cousin Sophie Mol visited one summer.

Wowzers in my trousers, the writing style was fantastic. However, much of the four out of five is because of that; I was interested in the characters, particularly Estha, but I didn't really care for them much. This reminded me a lot of One Hundred Years of Solitude - somewhat cold, removed; a worthy observation of humanity but not entirely human itself.

This is a novel where I both laughed & cried. The plot is about loss, the loss of many things, but Ms. Roy has a sense of the ridiculous (for example she describes a Hindu religious ceremony that has been shortened in order to accommodate those people with short attention spans). She introduced me to a side of India I never knew & will never forget.