An insightful, graceful read that’s slightly overextended.
In Bahuguna’s debut novel, a girl comes to terms with childhood abuse through love, education and family.
A stream-of-consciousness prologue opens this novel with questions about life, God and the meaning of everything. It’s a move that places the reader squarely inside Nargis’ fraught existence. Exactly what’s wrong isn’t clear, but it’s obvious she’s suffering mental and physical distress. Bahuguna uses that entree to segue into Nargis’ difficult story—from a childhood in India in the ’60s, schooling, falling in love, a bout with tuberculosis, a subsequent stay in a sanatorium in Russia and raising a family in a Chicago suburb. The path this endearing narrator takes is filled with bumps. The main issue, though, is Nargis’ relationship with her father. Bahuguna writes: “Daddy would call all the shots in the family: How we should be educated, what language we should speak, how we should behave, and how we should think. And also, how we must dream. He would even decide our relationship with God.” Over the course of several years, he would also molest Nargis. As a way to heal, she not only moves away, she writes an account of her entire life, which takes form as this novel. “As you can understand, I have been hesitant about telling my story, at the risk of remorse over self-disclosure and the agony of feeling the pain again. But nothing can stop me now.” It’s a difficult story, but one that is well-told. Nargis is a relatable character and Bahuguna approaches her plight with grace and sympathy. The supporting cast—her father, mother, siblings and boyfriend—is well-drawn, and the family drama that ensues is efficiently handled. Bahuguna notes that she, too, has lived in India, Russia and Chicago, and she’s able to colorfully develop each setting. In the introduction, she writes that her work as a psychiatrist inspired her to create Nargis as a composite fictional character, with the goal of enhancing “the awareness of abuse issues.” That background information, which complements years of Nargis’ back story, would be better suited as a postscript, though, so the reader could approach the text from Nargis’ perspective. Bahuguna’s evocative prose is also peppered with references to pop culture, Indian terms (a glossary appears at the end) and flowery but appropriate language.
An insightful, graceful read that’s slightly overextended.Pub Date: March 15, 2013
ISBN: 9780985422219
Page Count: 447
Publisher: Drona Productions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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