Weight Loss - Upamanyu Chatterjee

Fiction

Verdict: Eh, if you're a pervert

This is the first book I've read by Upamanyu Chatterjee. There was a lot of hype on Pinterest about it. And the cover is cool.  Perhaps there's a lot I'm missing - like Rushdie - but I don't think so. 

The book follows the protagonist, Bhola, through his lifelong views and experiences with sex. Bhola is bisexual (or anything sexual to be honest), which is refreshing for an Indian novel. It just so happens the next book I'm reviewing has a bisexual protagonist too. Weird coincidence, I guess. 

Anyhow, we follow Bhola's life and experiences. I found it extremely unsettling to see life through this lens, as everything else is portrayed as trivial and not worth depth. His childhood family, college experiences, marriage, future, and even his child come way, way back behind his focus on sex. I kept waiting for there to be a point or plot line, but outside of sex, there wasn't one. It struck me as very, very sad. Either the character has a weird obsession with sex or hasn't engaged much with life in general. Perhaps this is my 80's conservative, US, white upbringing, but sex is a part of life, not all of it. 

The writing was well done. If the author intended to skewer an Indian obsession with sex here, it succeeded for me - I felt disgust for the main character. Again, I can't decide if this is genius or accidental.  I also wasn't sure what to make of Chatterjee's subtle commentary on classism. It was either brilliantly done or horrifyingly normalized. I feel disgust from the fact that it's not at all clear.

I feel there are better portrayals of lower and middle-class lives, sex, and obsessions. I will try another of Chatterjee's books just to satisfy my curiosity about genius or oblivious.

~Becky~                          

Sold - Patricia McCormick

Sold is the story of a 13 year old Nepali girl named Lakshmi. The narrative opens with a description of life in her villiage, how difficult it is for her family to feed everyone, and the male worship that is an overwhelming force in her part of the world. Lakshmi's stepfather is worshiped to the point where even though he openly talks of selling her and bets away all his money, and her mother still tells her to be thankful that they have a man looking after them.

Lakshmi feels the pressure to help earn money for her family and agrees to go and work. Her stepfather instead sells her to a trafficker without telling her and she ends up in an unnamed city in a brothel. Her transition from care free child to exploited woman is short and brutal. It is made clear that even those who escape their "debt" to the madam and are allowed to leave will never be welcomed back by their family and diseases are neither avoided nor rare.

At the end of the book, Lakshmi is rescued from the brothel by a man from an NGO. It leaves you feeling both glad she got out, and ashamed that so many will not.

Verdict: Read it. Sexual slavery and trafficking is a problem that spans the whole world and needs the attention of everyone.

Fifty Shades of Gray - E.L. James

Moving right along with the poplit – Fifty Shades of Grey. This one however, has my complete and utter support.

This book is a romance novel with some serious heat included. It has all the right material for a romance novel – flawed hero, vacuous plot, non realistic situations and solutions. So don’t be expecting a brain buster here.  In its defense, the book has some very hot scenes.

BDSM has a central role in this book. While it doesn’t delve into anything too deep or disturbing, if this type thing bothers you, it’s probably best for you to skip it. This particular thing floats my boat, so I enjoyed it.

There are three books to this series. I will have to say the first one was the best for me. At the end of the third one, I was ready to be done as the plot had tapered off into nothing.

My husband about popped a gasket when he found out how much I spent on Amazon for “trash novels” but I’m not sorry I did. I look forward to reading through the first book again for the hot scenes.

Verdict: Read it if you are open to a different flavor of sex.

Becky