In place of exploring identity and belonging, or the transformation of tradition, or class privilege, or a human voice, The Namesake is bogged with unremitting descriptions of everything in a room. Across generations the characterisation is flat and, like in Amy Tan’s novels, the American generation is the … Read more
★★★★½
The story in Indravalli blooms, unique to the setting, with a persuasive love anchoring Poornima and Savitha amidst poverty and patriarchal oppression. The titled theme however, despite being drummed at the reader, begins to lose coherence after successions of misery are planted along the pages. Savitha especially has … Read more
At the side of the central subjects, I identified so much with Brittney’s realisation of and being reconciled to her interpersonal skills and social aura.
★★★★
★★★★½
★★★★
★★★★
Struggles presented as universal take on a quality of mocking delusion when the excess of protagonists (only male voices) all become famous millionaires at the top of their fields who own fabulous and plural homes and have access to private jets and Alhambra strolls. The decided main character … Read more
★½
★★★½
I enjoyed reading most about his return visit to Hong Kong, his personal reflections on identity and belonging. Even tempered with self-deprecation, the rest is a little bit too in the belly of noxious standards of success and masculinity. I would be like his father, though, and … Read more
★★★★½
★★★★½
★★★★★
★★★★
A collection of marriage- and baby-normative stories with nearly identical protagonists. All formidably written of course.
Capably written single-formula stories that are casually fatphobic, ableist, dismissive of the other while centring another ‘other’.
★★★★½
★★★
