Book Review: THE BLACK CAT DETECTIVES

Title: The Black Cat Detectives

Author: Kit Gray

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Pages: 304

My GoodReads Rating: 

Mila MacAllister is a 28-yo magician in a small town, Corvin’s Crossing, hoping to make it to the big league. On the morning of her performance, at which she expects to be scouted for a resort that is looking for performers, Mila finds three black kittens, with the mother nowhere in sight, in a box in the alley outside the club where she is to perform. She rescues them and takes them to the vet and decides to adopt them.

That evening, Mila’s successful performance comes to a sudden close when the body of her boyfriend and manager, Brandon, comes crashing through the roof to the stage, with Mila’s pocket knife protruding out of his chest.

 

The story is written in four PoVs, the 3^rd person PoV of Mila and the 1^st person PoVs of the three kittens named Bippity, Boppity and Boop. Bippity is female, Boppity is male, and Boop is non-binary. The other two kittens use they/them pronouns while referring to Boop.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

I liked the emphasis on friendships and the family ties you build for yourself.

I am no lover of cats, yet I was quite amused and intrigued by the antics of the kittens. The characterization of the kittens is done with a gentle touch. Bippity sees herself as a leader, born to lead her siblings. Boppity fancies himself as a great warrior and is always ready for battle. Boop is always gentle, preferring naps and cuddling to anything else. The curiosity, independence and vulnerability of the cats rang true, even though I know very little about cats.

The voices of the three kittens were strong and striking.

The descriptions of the foods cooked by Ms Fi, and Q and Mrs Scarborough all popped off the page.

In terms of diversity, Asia is well represented through Ms Fi and Becca Varma, Mila’s best friend.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The focus should have been on the murder mystery. Instead, the cats took up excessive space, causing a lot of repetition, given that there are three kittens and only one Mila.

Why Becca should be a Varma, an Indian origin surname, makes no sense. We see no evidence of her background or culture, making the name tokenish. She might as well have been white.

In keeping with what has almost become the trope of the genre, Mila was both smart and dumb.

I found the conclusion rather tame. The killer wasn’t convincing enough, nor was their rationale for killing.

The Physics-based superpowers of the kittens weren’t very clear.

Mila’s back story was minimal. It was unclear why she left her parents’ home. They neglected her, and led their own lives, but her trauma suggested something far worse. Also, where and how she learnt magic was something that wasn’t explained.

 

WHAT DIDN’T QUITE WORK:

In one place, Bopp had male pronouns used, possibly a typo that slipped past.

There is a whole chapter set at the vet’s where Mila takes the three kittens. This chapter was wholly unnecessary.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This was a cozy mystery that ultimately ended up being more cozy and less mystery, with the kittens overshadowing the resolution of the mystery. 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: WHEN THE RAIN CAME

Title: When the Rain Came

Author: Matt Eicheldinger

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing

Pages: 314

My GoodReads Rating: 

Aurora, 17, lives with her foster parents, Niko and Jada, when the rain begins. A relentless mix of drizzle and downpour that scientists call an unprecedented global disaster. As the water levels rise, the mansion they live in gets flooded. Niko and Jada are preppers and they have prepared for the worst eventuality, with emergency bags all ready for use. They also impress upon her the rules. Rule no 1: You prep for you and no one else. Rule no 2: Two is one and one is none.

Niko and Jada provide for Aurora but show her no affection. One night, Jada lets her guard down and shows Aurora her vulnerable side. The next morning, Niko and Jada have disappeared, gone with their emergency bags. Once they have gone, Aurora finds a map to a place called the Hill, which promises a refuge. When the mansion is attacked by men with criminal intentions, Aurora escapes, intent on getting to the Hill.

Along the way, she befriends a young boy called Kota and learns of the Dark Pools, supposedly controlled by Shui gui, a supernatural entity, that swallow everything in their path. Both Aurora and Kota are in a vulnerable situation and they settle into a protective sibling vibe. For Aurora, who has never had a family, Kota is the nearest thing to one.

In the midst of terrifying challenges, the two learn to prioritise and think on their feet. Will they ever manage to get to the Hill? When they reach it, will they find it a place of safety or danger?

 

This is Book 1 of a trilogy, and is written in the 1^st person POV of Aurora.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The chapters are short. The author has done a wonderful job with the setting. The writing was urgent and atmospheric, making me feel sadness, fear and concern for Aurora and Kota.

The descriptions were beautiful:

Each drop explodes like tiny bullets, turning the surface of brown liquid into a roiling battlefield of ripples and waves.

When that sky meets the horizon of the water, steam rises in a ghostly fog, shrouding the scene in an apocalyptic mist.

Rain pounds everything in sight, a thousand tiny hammers drilling into the surface of the churning water.

The action keeps us on edge, as Aurora battles dangers as varied as cruel humans, wild animals and the wrath of nature. The characters’ actions and the description of the setting and the situation complement each other.

There is an ironic foreshadowing in the words, Today … ended as a memorable day. A good day. And maybe tomorrow will be even better, that piqued my interest.

The thing that struck me about this book, from the very first paragraph, was the voice of Aurora, how strong and expressive it was.

We get a sense of disaster and chaos, a dismantling of order. The disaster helps us understand what is truly significant, and how we humans chase the wrong things. Things that people owned and took pride in, cars, bicycles, fences, all trapped under the moving slush of filth and debris.

The tagline of the book 'If everything falls apart, what will you hold on to?' was something that the book succeeded in living up to.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

This book would have fit squarely under the genre of Climate-fiction, a genre of literature that is sorely needed these days, but no one, not even the preppers, ever addresses why it is raining for months on end.

The world is in chaos, and yet some systems are working. Even when Niko and Jada begin to run out of food and water, there is no mention of sanitation issues. In one building where the children take refuge, Kota uses the toilet, so sanitation is apparently fine. None of the characters talk about bodily discomfort issues. There is a nightmare on, and sewage entering homes should have been the first consequence.

There are some things that don’t make sense. How is a parking lot dry when tall buildings are flooded, with only the tips visible?

I would have liked to have had a little more back story about Kota. He seems to be a token diversity character. We are not told anything about his background, except that his grandmother has told him about the shui gui, spirits from Chinese folklore, while he calls his father Baba, a term for father in Indian, Middle Eastern and African cultures.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The situation isn’t rooted in time and place. We get no sense of when this is happening, a future time, or even a parallel earth.

When Kota steps into an abyss inside a building to get a canoe, Aurora gives him a flashlight which he clenches between his teeth, before swimming away. Moments later, both Aurora and another character, Markell, ask him a question, and he answers both questions easily. We are not told about him having taken the flashlight out of his mouth to answer.

Aurora didn’t act as if she was 17. She seemed to me to be younger, around 14 or 15. Also, for someone who has lived all her life in the foster system, she has no experiences, positive or negative, related to foster homes. Just an indifference to that part of her life, which is strange. Also, she never talks about herself in the near future, her plans for when she turns 18. This adds to the impression that she might be younger.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

Living in a city with poor infrastructure, I have seen enough of the damage that flooding can do to assess how much worse things could get when worst-case scenarios become real. There are some kinks that should have been edited out. Despite them, I enjoyed this story about a modern-day deluge of Biblical proportions.

(I read this book on Edelweiss. Thank you to the author, the publisher and Edelweiss.)

Book Review: A MOST PECULIAR PROVIDENCE

Title: A Most Peculiar Providence

Author: Angela Hunt

Publisher: Hunt Haven Press

Pages: 428

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Twenty-six-year-old Joshua Donnelly lives in a small town called Peculiar, with his mother. He handcrafts wooden toys for a living. When she passes away unexpectedly due to a stroke, his world is upended. He decides to fulfill her last wish that he “fill the house with love” by getting a dog, Hoss.

Meanwhile, Heather Thomas and her boyfriend, Brett Steelhawk, of three years, are homeless and busking together near Peculiar. Heather is pregnant but Brett doesn’t want the baby. On their last day in town, she miscarries and then finds that Brett has abandoned her.

When Sarah, a vagrant, gives birth to a baby girl, she gets Heather to promise to hand over her baby to someone kind in Peculiar who will look after the baby. With no choice, Heather leaves the baby outside Josh’s front door. What happens next? Will Josh look after the baby? And is there any hope for Heather?

When Hoss digs up a human bone in Josh’s backyard, the past threatens to overshadow Josh’s happiness in the present. Who is responsible for the crime? And will Josh pay for it?

 

The story is told from the first-person past-tense PoV of the town police chief as well as in the third-person omniscient past tense.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The story had a warm, fuzzy vibe to it from the very first sentence. I felt as if I knew and loved the characters. I particularly loved the similes:

Like loose change in a coffee tin.

Frost glazed the glass, glittering like crushed sugar.

This story had slipped past me like a cat burglar in socks.

 

I liked the character of Josh, even though he came across as a little odd. It was sweet that he got Hoss, a huge English mastiff, because he promised his mother that he would fill the house with love.

I particularly liked the scenes between Josh and baby Maggie. The narrator, through Josh’s actions, tells us how easy it is to care for an infant. You fed them, you changed them, you held them close. You kept them safe. You loved them.

 

Some more quotes that I liked:

When you pull on the past, it doesn’t come back gentle. It comes back hungry.

Sometimes when a man stops pacing, it means he's found a place to stand.

Order is a comforting thing, but it’s fragile. And when it cracks, strange, even miraculous things have a way of slipping through.

 

The book ends with fun recipes for Hoss’s Favourite Dog Treats, Josh’s Bologna Sandwiches, Josh’s Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Mama’s Homemade Lasagna, all written with dollops of affection and humour intertwined with life lessons and some easy philosophy.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

I felt a little note of dissonance when Heather and Josh met. Josh was so kind, and Heather’s animosity felt forced. Of course, the reasons are explained later, but I never got over my dislike of her.

There is an element of the fantastical that runs through this book, which is unfortunately not pursued. We learn early on that Josh has the power to heal, but it isn’t used with any kind of significance. The fact that he has the power to heal should have played a greater role in the plot.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The story felt very old-fashioned, even though it is set in 2006. There was no mention of mobile phones or the Internet or anything that would root it in this century.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This was a sweet and gentle story well told.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: THE NEXT WOMAN

Title: The Next Woman

Author: Caroline Corcoran

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Pages: 322

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Lily’s best friend, Alice, disappeared on her birthday. Living on Aurora Island, there are so many places you can disappear to. The police are unable to find Alice. Then a woman called Becca disappears and then Corinne. They are termed the Alphabet Women, as it increasingly becomes obvious that someone is kidnapping the women in alphabetical order, one women for each letter of the alphabet. An office manager at the Aurora Island Eco Wellness Retreat, Lily lives in fear of being taken when L comes around.

Ross, a journalist from Manchester, comes over to the island to start a podcast that would help find the missing women and stop the nightmare. He convinces Lily to help produce his podcast and to offer her local knowledge. And all along, the danger is inching closer. The police are at their wits’ end.

Then L comes around, and Lily is safe, as another woman is taken. Has Lily escaped or are her secrets about to catch up with her?

 

The story is written in the 1^st person present tense PoV of Lily first, and then, once she disappears, we get the 1^st person present tense PoV of Zadie. The chapters are named after letters.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The chapters move fast. The chapter named M was dripping with tension.  The point where Lily disappears is the high point of the book.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

After that, it’s downhill, and we stop caring about the missing women.

I found the resolution very disappointing, bland and downright silly. The execution was flat. The reason why 26 women were kidnapped was unbelievable in a very underwhelming way.

Lily’s backstory doesn’t hit us with the force that the author intends it to. The mystery turns out to be related to her past, but in most incidental way.

It is very annoying when a character, supposedly key, is introduced at the 87% mark. Even Lily’s dad, Duncan, was introduced at the close of the story, without Lily ever mentioning a word about him.

We never get answers to how the kidnappings actually take place, which is something we need considering the suspense that has been built.

The last chapter, the actual tying up of the loose ends, should have been summarised by a 3^rd person omniscient narrator. In podcast format, the information was annoying with Ross appearing to be some kind of a know-it-all.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

For the bulk of the story, we have no idea what the police are doing.

There are some diversity token characters put in just because. These are Radhika, Anushka and Jameela. They have no role to play.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

A good premise, with a very tepid mystery attached.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: A NOVEL CRIME

Title: A Novel Crime

Author: Deborah Levison

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Pages: 332

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Marcy Jo Codburn has done everything to become a famous romance novelist, including manifesting success and writing five chapters of a novel that isn’t heading anywhere. She dreams of a successful career under the pseudonym, Summer Branigan. Her day job as a realtor isn’t going well either. Even her college-going daughter Bea considers her father, Marcy’s ex-husband Kevin, her favourite parent.

When Francesca Barber, the most successful novelist in America, embarks on a multi-city tour, Marcy and her three writing group mates decide to go see her. When Marcy catches Francesca making out with Tabi Benlolo, the Portuguese star of the movie version of Francesca’s books and the husband of her daughter Aspen, Francesca thinks Marcy has clicked a picture of them, and offers to help with Marcy’s manuscript.

Suddenly, Marcy’s life is looking up. Francesca is reading her manuscript and she has a potentially lucrative listing. It’s possible that Marcy might make a success as both a novelist and as a realtor, as long as she puts in the hard work required.

But then Marcy gets greedy. Leveraging Francesca’s secret, she wonders why she should work hard at her goal, when she could get the famous novelist to do the writing for her. As the collaboration gets underway, more secrets surface, amid a tangle of looming deadlines and an attempted kidnap that creates its own set of problems. Will Marcy ever see the success she craves? If yes, at what cost?

 

The story is written in the first-person present tense PoV of Marcy.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

I love books about books, authors and writing, so that part was interesting.

Neither of the female main characters here, Marcy/Summer and Francesca, are likeable or even morally sound. We don’t understand whether they deserve our sympathy or derision, but it doesn’t matter. The plot is the real hero here, and events happen at such a crazy pace that all you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. This story is certainly madness and chaos unleashed. In a very good way. Everything that can go wrong does.

There is a sub-plot about Marcy trying to improve her relationship with her daughter and to present herself as a better role model for her.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

I wasn’t sure how I felt about Marcy. Sometimes, I liked her; mostly I didn’t.

I dislike characters throwing food into the trash, and that happens here. Granted that Marcy wants to start eating healthy, but she should have considered donating the food, instead of trashing it.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The set-up took very long. Or felt very long.

Strangely, Francesca doesn’t ever ask to see the incriminating photo. Which is a major loophole in the reasoning behind the plot.

The scene in which Bea explains her project to her mother, repeating it for our benefit, was boring.

At one point, Bea yells out that she and Kevin are vegetarian. That is an error. It should have been Bea and Patrick, her boyfriend, who are vegetarian.

ALL SAID AND DONE:

I enjoyed the madness in this book. 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: THE HOTEL MAID

Title: The Hotel Maid

Author: Michelle Dunne

Publisher: Storm Publishing

Pages: 264

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 

In the Prologue, we meet June Calloway, a maid who has been working in the Cedarwood Manor Hotel for the last six years, who finds a dead body, Mrs Erica Kelly, in Room 208. When she calls Lauren at Reception to inform her about the dead body, she learns that Mrs Kelly’s 10-year-old daughter, Mia, is missing and that the police are on their way.

Chapter 1 then takes us back in time to a period Six weeks earlier, when June finds a note in her locker, saying, “I know what you did. Keep your mouth shut.” June, who believes in working hard and keeping her mouth shut, has her secrets, but she can’t imagine who might be warning her. Who could have left her the note? Could it be Malcolm Levy, the security head, whose grandparents own the hotel? Or Liz, the hotel manager, who is in a relationship with Malcolm? Soon there is another note with the single word, Killer.

The only support that June receives comes to her from Tess, who lives in the apartment she has rented.

Meanwhile, Mia, the adoptive daughter of Erica Kelly, is subjected to horrible child abuse and mean gaslighting at home.

 

The book is written in the 3^rd person past tense PoV of June and Mia. On the face of it, there is nothing to tie the stories of June, Mia and Tess together. There’s nothing really graphic but the book hints at child abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, self-harm and even paedophilia.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The author kept us on tenterhooks. There were several mysteries going on at once. What was June’s past? What did Erica Kelly want?

My heart went out to Mia. Her account made for painful reading. She was such a sweet child, yet so vulnerable, going through challenges no child should have to go through. It was sad to see a child being told untruths and lies, and her then building her self-image based on those lies. The humiliation and the belittling that she is subjected to, despite the hard work that she puts in to cook three meals a day for the family and clean the house. I enjoyed the embodied writing in Mia’s PoV. The end of Chapter 20 especially made me want to wreak violence on Erica. I certainly connected more with Mia’s POV than with June’s.

The narration by Jacqueline Milne was very well done, with every voice sounding different and tuned to the situations of the plot.

One quote I really liked in this book: Turns out nobody in this bloody story is who they say they are.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The book takes on disturbing overtones towards the end.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

There is no mention of any cell phones in the novel so it is hard to figure out a timeline. At one point, Mia mentions that she has read the news about Paris Jackson’s suicide, and since that happened around 2013, it gives us some idea, but the complete absence of cell phones throws us off.

The book raises certain questions that aren’t answered. At around 10 years of age, Mia cooks and cleans for the whole family. She was brought into the house when she was a very small child. Who looked after her then? Who cooked and cleaned for the family then? Also, who taught little Mia to cook, clean and keep house?

The identity of the person leaving the notes was never clarified. Towards the end, June has a suspicion about who might have done it, but she has no evidence. Nor does her theory seem plausible.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

It took rather long to make its point, but it was an enjoyable read.

 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

 

Book Review: THE CHOIR

Title: The Choir

Author: Carol M Cram

Publisher: HTF Publishing

Pages: 342

My GoodReads Rating:

Eliza Kingwell is planning to escape from husband Reg to her grandmother’s house in Devon with her five daughters. Life isn’t easy, and Reg is a violent and abusive man. Pregnant with her sixth child, Eliza is desperate to keep her children safe, amid financial struggles and physical abuse. When Reg finds the money that Eliza had spirited away, her Escape Plan is undone.

Meanwhile, Ruth Kingwell, Eliza’s best friend and the stepdaughter of Reg through a previous marriage, is a singer and actress on the stage in London, a darling of the crowds. She is married to James Henton, a wealthy man, a marriage of convenience for both. When Henton kills himself to save his reputation and get away from crippling debt, Ruth loses her position at the theatre and her home, and takes up a job as an adjudicator of choral competitions.

A choral competition, with a generous prize for the best choir and the best solo singer, encourages Eliza to think that all is not lost. Forming a choir, Eliza focuses on winning the prize and earning her escape. But is she good enough to win?

 

The book is written in the 3^rd person past tense PoVs of Eliza and Ruth in alternate chapters. It is set in October 1897, in Briarstown, East Yorkshire, in the PoV of Eliza and in London and other places in the PoV of Ruth.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The author gives us a taste of the reality of the times. The author tells us that the stench of the privies pervades the air, and the men and young children as young as 13 years of age work long 14-hour shifts at the mill. It is also a time when unwanted pregnancies lead to botched miscarriages.

The descriptions are minimal, yet the right phrase opens our minds to the world. For instance, she puts in a stray mention of the Art Nouveau movement and the custodial experience of Oscar Wilde, rooting the story in its point in history.

The new threshing machines, that make an appearance as the Industrial Age comes into its own, render people like Eliza’s father, who doesn’t know how to use them, unemployable,

I was invested in both the Main Characters. Close to the turn of the century, both women use their innate capacities to get ahead and to imagine a better future for themselves.

Eliza’s daughters were all sweet. I liked Gladys, in particular; a voracious reader, she doesn’t want to stop to eat because she has reached an exciting bit in the book she is reading. Even the minor characters were sweet.

The structure of the plot, with the parallels in how doors shut in the faces of Eliza and Ruth, was interesting.

What I liked most was the language of the author’s similes:

the blood and sadness that flowed from her body, thick and sluggish like the wake of a barge sliding slowly down the canal.

Fear twisted through Eliza’s body like a sapling in a hurricane.

A keening sound like the screeching of unoiled machinery razored the air.

…the axle around which her family rotated.

The word hung between them like a drop of blood too thick to fall.

Face as pale as a bolt of unbleached linen.

Old rivalries and hurt feelings dissolved like the harsh lye soap frothing the wash water

Notes flying off in all directions like bobbins disconnected from their looms.

Grief passing like a shuttle

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

Compared to the first two-thirds of the book, the last part felt weak.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

Reg’s actions on the page were nowhere as cruel as we were led to believe. The meek manner in which he gives in is out of place, even in cozy fiction. There should have been more evidence of his wickedness.

Eliza’s mother’s change of heart felt just as unconvincing.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

An easy read, particularly if you like stories about choirs. 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: THE PROBABLE SON

Title: The Probable Son

Author: Cindy Jiban

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Pages: 252

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Elsa Vargas, middle grade school math teacher, and her husband, Eugene ‘Ham’ Hamilton, have a baby boy in 2005. They are thrilled and grateful for the blessing, especially after the stillbirth of their first daughter, Inga, three years ago. While still in the hospital, Elsa realizes that the baby she is nursing is not the baby that was handed to her soon after she gave birth. She fears that her own baby is bonding with some other mother, whose own baby has been handed to her by mistake. But no one believes her.

In 2019, Elsa sees a boy, Thomas Humphrey, in her class, who not only shares his birthday with her own son, Bird, but is more like her, Ham and younger son, Garvey, than Bird could ever be. Is Thomas the son she has always believed was taken away from her? Can she afford to pursue the truth? How would it upend their lives?

 

The book was written from the 3^rd person past tense PoV of Elsa, except for an occasional chapter from the PoV of the PTO chair Natalie Trowbridge and Thomas’s mother Katharine Humphrey.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

It was interesting to see how the truth was first teased out through the probability lesson in Math class.

The chapters about the loss of a child were written from a place of sensitivity and grief. The writing of the narrative sections was handled well. The scenes describing the birthing experience and the nursing and bonding with Bird when he was an infant and the truth of how Elsa makes her peace with her situation were written with heart. I could relate to these scenes.

I cringed with second-hand pain and embarrassment at the manner in which Elsa came to terms with her loss.  

I liked Bird and Thomas a lot.

One quote I liked:

There were always scars; even parents who didn’t inflict abuse couldn’t protect their children from moments of terror, tangles with shame, and the way wills got bent to those in power. A family … had a secret internal logic, that set the dials on its children, adjusting the amplitudes and magnitudes until they grew into something genes alone couldn’t explain.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

All the other characters. They weren’t written as sensitively and affectionately as Bird and Thomas. I found Elsa very annoying.

Elsa’s, and the author’s, explanation for why Thomas was Elsa’s long-lost son, given how closely his personality and habits matched those of Elsa herself, Ham and Garvey, was baseless. The fact that Bird likes unbuttered popcorn, while the others love theirs buttered; his love for the fantasy genre, which they hate; his optimism and easy-going nature, while the others are more pessimistic and outgoing, and his belief in God, which the others don’t share, seem to convince Elsa that he is not the child she gave birth to.

In this story, the cross-family similarities between Thomas and the Hamiltons and between Bird and the Humphreys are so intense, it’s as if Nature does everything while Nurture does nothing. I wanted to tell Elsa that wasn’t how genetics works, and that her simplistic explanation simply disregards the power of the nurturing and upbringing that a child receives.

The dialogues were very ordinary and banal.

The whole process by which Elsa proceeds to get the spit or saliva of Bird and Thomas, who is her ‘probable’ son, is disgusting, and I wanted to skip right ahead. This was one chapter that needed to be told in one line, not shown in so much detail. Even Bird thought that the whole spit collection thing was gross.

And just as it seemed that we had escaped the horror of spit and saliva, there was an extended chapter and more about something called ‘gleeking,’ something I’d never heard of before, and something I wish I’d never heard about.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The subplot about Boys of America (BOA) was so unnecessary. Subplots should be related in some way to the main plot for maximum effect. Here the connection between them was weak.

What was the nonsense about the invisible hamster? An 8^th-grade student killed the hamster by mistake and his mother told Elsa not to reveal the truth to the other students. So she says it’s invisible, and what? And eighth-grade students believe her?

The affair between school principal Robert Schusterman and PTO member Natalie Trowbridge seemed forced.

Garvey referring to Jennifer, the friend of his mother, by name didn’t seem appropriate, given his age.

The constant similarities that Elsa pointed out between members of her own family and Thomas were annoying. As if real families have no differences at all.

Elsa pulls one of Bird’s corkscrew curls out to straight and we are told that it makes a “sproing” sound when she lets it go. Corkscrew curls, despite the word corkscrew signifying metal, are still hair. And hair does not make ‘sproing” sounds.

In one of the chapters, Elsa and Krista, her younger sister, go for a long walk around a lake. Over pages and pages in the book, they talk about many things, including Krista’s fitness levels, the state of her kitchen, the Mexican Talavera tiles she has installed in her kitchen, leading up to the Mexican ancestry of the Vargas family, and what the members of their extended family are doing, before this lengthy talk reaches the destination planned all along, namely, Elsa’s decision to check out the app, MyTree.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE: 

I would have liked this book more if it had been just about the family dynamics. The BOA took away from keeping me invested in the book, and the whole spit/saliva/gleeking nonsense was a huge turn-off.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: INDIAN CHRISTMAS

Title: Indian Christmas

Editors: Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle

Publisher: Speaking Tiger

Pages: 234

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2 

This book consisted of a series of essays on the subject of Christmas as it is celebrated in India. I would have loved to contribute to this collection. If there is another edition, I hope the editors reach out to me.

 

Unto All of Us a Child Is Born by Jerry Pinto: I could totally relate to this essay. Jerry spoke about the lack of snow in Bombay at Christmas and how we aspired to have snow because that is what we saw in Christmas cards and films. Older people talked about Jim Reeves; he was the cornerstone of secular Christmas music. Jerry also spoke about the crass commercialism that Christmas has been reduced to, and reminded us that Christ and his family were migrants, relating the fact to His teaching, Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto Me.

Jerry highlighted the fact of Jesus’ Birth, and related it to the title, Unto All of Us a Child Is Born. That single word, All, makes us all party to the great miracle, and invites the least of us to partake in the message of joy, hope, peace and love.

This was by far my favourite among the essays. Jerry’s essay reminds us of the reason for the season, which often gets lost amid the commercialisation of Christmas. This was also the only essay that referenced what it means to be an Indian Christian.

 

Christmas in Many Flavors by Madhulika Liddle describes the diverse ways in which Christmas is celebrated in India, in terms of foods, sweets, snacks, songs and décor, as also the diversity of religious (as per the different denominations of Christianity) and secular celebrations. As she says, “We adopted the faith, but reserved for ourselves the right to decide how we’d celebrate its festivals.”

The Child by Rabindranath Tagore: This lyrical poem contains the last two sections of one of Tagore’s finest long poems, inspired by the life of Jesus Christ. The poem roots the Nativity amid the rhythms and struggles of Indian rural life.

In the Spirit by Salman Rushdie: As an atheist Muslim, neither Rushdie nor his family celebrated Christmas. But Christmas entered his life several times in other ways.

At Midnight the Shepherds Saw the Light (Author Unknown) was a poem translated from Hindi. We read the original Hindi and the English translation and, in both languages, the words ‘Aadhi raat’ and midnight, repeated several times, are soothing and affirming.

Cake ki Roti at Dua ka Ghar by Madhulika Liddle: Here the author tells the true story of her own surname and how it came to be. Dua ka ghar (house of prayer) was the name of the author’s family home, built by her grandfather. This recollection was warm and fuzzy. The author shares her childhood memories and reiterates a point I believe: that Christmas and Christianity are not Western constructs. They belong to Indian Christians as much as to any believer.

The Sunset Club by Khushwant Singh: This excerpt takes us into the lives of the Hindu Mr Sharma, the Sikh Boota and the Muslim Baigs. Later in the excerpt, Begum Baig points out that Christians make merry but don’t go to church to give thanks to their Maker. I enjoy reading Khushwant Singh, but the Christmas reference here was incidental.

A Merry Vindalee to You by Anupama Raju: The author gives us the story of Vindalee, the Keralite version of the Goan-Portuguese Vindaloo, and her mother’s recipe. A Christmas Wedding in Kottayam by Elizabeth Kuruvilla: The narrator and her husband, on a road trip on their Enfield from Delhi to Kerala, are now in Kottayam, her hometown, to attend their reception. Both these stories were fuelled by nostalgia, but they were more about food than about Christmas.

I’m Dreaming of a Goan Christmas by Vivek Menezes makes a reference not only to the sweets, but also to what Christmas means to Catholics and those of other faiths in Goa. I liked this essay.

Nothing Compares to the Joys of a Village by Mary Sushma Kindo (Translated from Hindi by Renuka Chatterjee) was a lovely eye-opener to how Christmas is celebrated in small villages in the Hindi heartland. They don’t have enough but manage to mark the day with joy.

My Memories of Christmas by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar also talks about Christmas in her childhood, when she was fascinated by the festival, but from a non-Christian perspective. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri: The excerpt shows a Bengali family in the US beginning a Christmas tradition.

In Search of an East Indian Christmas in Mumbai by Debbie Rosario describes the tradition of Christmas celebrations that she witnessed when she was young.

Did Your First Christmas Cake Come out of an Ammunition Box Too? By Easterine Kire was interesting. Santa Comes in a Rickshaw—Christmas in Bow Barracks by Nazes Afroz was too short and ended abruptly. I would have liked to read more. Christmas in the Moon Place by Veio Pou was a lovely depiction of life in a small Christian village in Manipur around Christmas.

Yuletides of Yore by Minoo Avari was a recounting of several Christmas memories, one of which was the 28^th birthday celebration of her mother, which coincided with Christmas. 

In A Village Christmas by Damodar Mauzo (Translated from Konkani by Jerry Pinto), the author talks about the Hindu festival, Ganesh Chaturthi, and Christmas being his favourite festivals, and links these favourites to the strong secular fabric of his village.

How India’s Pluralistic Past Shows the Way Forward by Manimugdha S Sharma: Here the writer talks about festivals in general, and Christmas in particular, and mourns the fact that India’s pluralism is on the decline.

Armenia Christmas Food in Calcutta by Mohona Kanjilal is a detailed description of the title.

In Christmas Memories of a Family by Nivedita Mishra, the writer, born and raised in a multi-cultural multi-religious family, tells us that she is not very religious, but that she does have a strong faith in God and that her faith is rewarded one Christmas. This was another one of my favourite essays in this collection.

Last Christmas in Bandra by Aravind Adiga was a random unrelated recollection of a judge. Christmas was only incidental here.

Christmas Carols Punjabi Style (Translated from Punjabi by Nirupama Dutt: There is no mention of the writer’s name.

Made in India and All of That by Nilima Das is a charming account of the childhood of a woman of mixed parentage who received the best of both worlds.

A Christmas Prayer—Words and Music by Alfred J D’Souza; Arranged for choir by Leon D’Souza

Most of the essays were about the secular nature of Christmas and the celebrations, rather than any affirmations of faith. This collection can be read by anyone who misses the secular appeal of Christmas. 

I loved the beautiful cover of the Holy Family in Indian garb.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)