Like an Indian Maeve Binchy, Divakaruni offers an entertaining if lightweight comfort read.
Although her heroine travels to the United States to unravel family secrets, the heart of Divakaruni's cross-cultural novel (One Amazing Thing, 2010, etc.) lies in contemporary Kolkata, India.
Orphaned in infancy, 18-year-old Korobi (the name for Oleander) has been raised in a cocoon of privilege and protectiveness by her devoted maternal grandparents. They have told Korobi little about her parents, but she has found and cherishes a love letter she assumes was written by her mother to her dead father shortly after she was born. Korobi has recently become engaged to Rajat Bose, a far more sophisticated, modern young man whose family owns art galleries in Kolkata and New York City. Korobi’s life seems perfect. But then Korobi’s grandfather, a stern traditionalist, collapses at the formal engagement party. After his death, Korobi’s grandmother acknowledges some bitter truths: Not only is Korobi’s father alive, an African-American whom Korobi’s mother met while studying at Berkley, but he and Korobi’s mother were not yet married when Korobi’s mother died. Despite the potential scandal that she is illegitimate and half African-American, Rajat still wants to marry Korobi, but she becomes obsessed with finding her father before marrying. Although his patience is understandably strained, Rajat stands behind Korobi’s decision to travel alone to America for a month on her quest. In America, the innocent—to the point of being naïve—Korobi faces challenges she has never imagined and takes increasing control of her life as she searches for clues about her father with the help of a kindly Indian private detective. She and Rajat, who has shielded her from his own worries about his family’s increasing financial problems since 9/11, begin to drift apart. She is tempted by a new attraction; he is pursued by a former lover. Both must find a balance between old and new values. Surrounded by diverting secondary characters, Korobi herself is so self-absorbed that it is hard not to feel sorry for long-suffering Rajat.
Like an Indian Maeve Binchy, Divakaruni offers an entertaining if lightweight comfort read.Pub Date: March 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-9565-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
The perfect feminist blockbuster for our times.
A decade in the life of a smart, earnest young woman trying to make her way in the world.
On Greer Kadetsky’s first weekend at Ryland College—a mediocre school she’s attending because her parents were too feckless to fill out Yale’s financial aid form—she gets groped at a frat party. This isn’t the life she was meant to lead: “You [need] to find a way to make your world dynamic,” she thinks. Then Greer meets Faith Frank, a second-wave feminist icon who’s come to speak at Ryland. During the question-and-answer period, Greer stands up to recount her assault and the college’s lackluster response, and, later, Faith gives her a business card. Like a magical amulet in a fairy tale, that card leads Greer to a whole new life: After graduation, she gets a job working for Faith’s foundation, Loci, which sponsors conferences about women’s issues. That might not be the most cutting-edge approach to feminism, Greer knows, but it will help her enter the conversation. Wolitzer (Belzhar, 2014, etc.) likes to entice readers with strings of appealing adjectives and juicy details: Faith is both “rich, sophisticated, knowledgeable” and “intense and serious and witty,” and she always wears a pair of sexy suede boots. It’s easy to fall in love with her, and with Greer, and with Greer’s boyfriend, Cory, and her best friend, Zee: They’re all deep, interesting characters who want to find ways to support themselves while doing good in the world and having meaningful, pleasurable lives. They have conversations about issues like “abortion rights, and the composition of the Senate, and about human trafficking”; they wrestle with the future of feminism, with racism and classism. None of them is perfect. “Likability has become an issue for women lately,” Greer tells an English professor while she’s still at Ryland, and Wolitzer has taken up the challenge. Her characters don’t always do the right thing, and though she has compassion for all of them, she’s ruthless about revealing their compromises and treacheries. This symphonic book feels both completely up-to-the-minute and also like a nod to 1970s feminist classics such as The Women’s Room, with a can't-put-it-down plot that illuminates both its characters and larger social issues.
The perfect feminist blockbuster for our times.Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59448-840-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
PROFILES
Funny, heart-wrenching, insightful, and lovely.
As her teenage daughter endures bullying from her former best friends, Emma gets a call from her rich grandmother—who threw her out when she became pregnant and hasn’t spoken to her since—asking them to spend time with her before she dies.
Despite a complicated and painful childhood, Emma London has clawed her way to a successful, happy life, living with her maternal grandfather in Chicago and raising her perfect, beautiful daughter, Riley. Things take an unexpected turn at the end of Riley’s junior year of high school, when her lifelong best friends turn on her, and Emma’s estranged paternal grandmother, Genevieve London—who owns a high-end fashion and lifestyle brand and is considered “a style icon and an industry leader”—asks her to bring Riley and spend the summer with her in Connecticut since she’s dying of cancer. After her mother died when she was 8, Emma lived with Genevieve for 10 years, until right after she graduated from high school and discovered she was pregnant. Genevieve hasn’t spoken to her since. At first Emma is determined not to head east, but once Riley’s former friends become abusive, she packs up and gets away with her daughter. The summer is full of shocking secrets, surprising twists, and unexpected grace. Despite their differences, Genevieve and Emma love each other fiercely, and once Emma understands what Genevieve is truly up against, she turns woman warrior on her behalf while also creating a new life for herself and Riley in the place she’d never expected to come back to. Higgins explores another set of deeply affecting topics using engaging characters and a full spectrum of realistic emotions: humor, anger, anguish, and pride, among others, but above all, hope.
Funny, heart-wrenching, insightful, and lovely.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-451-48942-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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