The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Fun prose and interesting characters. The racism is unfortunately representative of the time.

I liked the premise of this book - I mean, why not open a retirement home in India? My problem what that the ensemble of characters was too big. I had Ravi and Dr. Rama mixed up for a long time, and Evelyn and Madge and Muriel all run together. The book didn't give me enough touchstones to distinguish the characters from one another. I kept thinking we would follow the story of one or two characters, and then the story line would switch to someone else. It was too distracting for my tastes.

Pathos just doesn't do it for me. I started this book a couple of months ago, abandoned it after 40 pages because of its depressing lack of humanity, then picked it up again today because (almost) everything deserves a second chance. I finished it, but I'm not sure I'd encourage anyone else to. It's just... bleak. I know the author tries to paint in some redemption, some self-discovery, but it falls flat.

(Aside: romanticizing life in a third-world country doesn't do it for me either.)