The Inheritance of Loss

It seemed like Desai was hopping from one character to another, one timeline to another, one place to another more than her character Biju did from one NY restaurant to another. Which, if had been done better would have made it a gripping read- even with the sheer lack of a plot.
Desai is a beautiful writer in terms of descriptions and observations, but eventually the hodgepodge of her thoughts in an incredibly distracting writing style with overuse of lists as humor makes this book a boring read. Better leave it alone.

Set in the Indian Himalaya, with Nepali and Indian characters; a cooks son sent to America to make his fortune; an orphaned granddaughter growing up in the care of her retired judge grandfather... Nepalis in India not being recognised as Indian resulting in civil unrest.

Really this had all the makings of a great story, and it won the Man-Booker. Hmm, Man-Booker - that means in my experience about a 40% success rate in whether it turns out to be good.

I struggled to hold interest in this, I think one of the problems was the jumping from character to character so quickly - often after a paragraph - you know, four characters on one page - I just found that exhausting. It was probably not helped by the small type, but ultimately it all fell a bit flat.

Two and a half stars for me, rounded up.

Wow.. that took a long time. I was not really into it.

After hearing lots of disappointed buzz about this book, I set it aside for several weeks. Then, as the author reading approached, I picked it back up. I ended up liking it less than I'd initially hoped, but better than the buzz had indicated I might. The ending was perfect, one of the best endings I've ever read. And I'm so glad I went to the author reading in Houston. Both Desai and her mother, author Anita Desai, read from their works and then discussed their books. Both authors came across as lovely people and it's always nice to hear and meet lovely authors.