I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn’t get into it after the first section. It tried way to hard to use by using flowery language while having a very weak plot that gets interesting at times but then leads nowhere.

The connections across time are weak and if your’re reading fast you might miss the connection. I for one had to switch to the audiobook because reading it was just so boring.

It succeeds at painting the picture of post-colonial India well, but falls flat as it moves forward in time. If it had just focused on the family at the start of the book and followed them through time it might have been much more engaging.

It touches on interesting themes like love, family, belonging, and geopolitics but again, just falls flat for me.

As much as it pains me to say, I would have DNF’d without the audiobook. I love supporting Indian authors who write about this time period by Swarup did not impress me with this work.