The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

I never intended to read this book because people responded to it the same way they responded to Slumdog Millionaire…with absolute adoration because it showed the pale faces the “real” side of an ethnicity that they wouldn’t otherwise see. But I was stranded in a hotel without a book for two weeks and I took what was offered to me. Some people feel amiss without their phone, I feel amiss without a book.

The book was great until the end frustrated me so much that it made me rethink that decision. The end was so shocking and abrupt it was like slamming into a brick wall after running at full speed. You’re totally unprepared for the blow. What concerns me is that this book is so popular that there will be many copycats of this type of ending. It would be a shame if my premonition comes true because you can only run into a brick wall but once. Then you learn the lesson and move on.

The White Tiger features Balram, an entrepreneur, based in Bangalore, India… Electronics City, Phase 1, Bangalore, India to be exact. And I read the book while staying in Electronics City, Phase 1, Bangalore, India. Too bad the book had nothing to do with Bangalore because the book was really about Delhi and the Darkness.

The book follows the journey of one enterprising man travelling from the Darkness, as one of the many impoverished youths in India, to the Light as an entrepreneur. At first I found the writing a little stilted but the author was writing from the pen of a lifelong servant whose mastery of prose came secondhand. And, after being in India for a while, the way Indians in general structure their sentences is awkward to the ear of an American. That awkwardness dissipated the more I interacted with Indians during my stay. It seemed the longer I stayed in India, the more fluid Balram became.

The author brought us an intimate portrayal of an Indian servant’s life. His secret wants and desires would make a master look twice at the staff they allow free range in their home. From the eyes of a servant, I could see how cruel the elite could be and it made me put more of an effort to be kind to the staff working in my hotel. I got so engrossed in how Balram saw life in India versus how I was experiencing it as one of those elite people; I almost forgot this was fiction. Correction, I have forgotten that this is fiction and I constantly look at my drivers wondering if they have the same thoughts as Balram. Do all servants have these thoughts or just drivers? I kept assessing if someone was a “landlord” or not as I surveyed Indian people. And it made me think about Indian men’s beaks more often than I like to admit.

The problem I have now is that this book has totally warped the way I look at Indian people. Since I was reading an Indian author’s portrayal of the backside of India, I took it all as true. But it is only one image of the complex tapestry that is India. From my own experiences, I know that India has some extremely rich people but a whole heck of a lot of poor people. And there is a growing middle class in between. There is more than one true image of India and I have only intimately researched one.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group by Neta Jackson

The bright pink & yellow cover caught my eye at my church’s “library” a couple Sundays ago. After reading the description on the back, I took it home. “Why not?” I thought, “It’s free to borrow it from the library anyway. So if I don’t like it, so what.”

This is the first time I have ever read Christian fiction. I was always put off by the idea because I thought it would be hokey and cliché like many books in the “African-American” fiction genre. If I learned nothing else from this book, I at least learned that general accusations don’t normally apply. I’m not saying that my initial thoughts aren’t true for a lot of books of these genres but it is not always true.

On to Yada Yada. The novel follows a group of women thrown together in a prayer group at a Chicago Christian conference for women. The story really begins after the conference is over as these women continue to meet and carry each other’s heavy life loads. They become each other’s support group. However unlikely it is that a group of women would travel up and down and across Chicago to meet & pray, it is inspiring and hopeful to see these women open up to each other and support each other so wholeheartedly and non-judgmentally.

Perhaps I like this book because I belong to a women’s prayer group myself and see a vision for what our prayer group could be and has been at spotted occasions when we really open up.

For my first Christian book… it isn’t bad… it isn’t spectacular either. The writing is sophomoric. The writing isn’t as fluid as really good writers can be. And some of her terminology reveals how out of touch the author is with how worldly people talk. When I saw the phrase “Did someone hit the bozo button?” I laughed out loud. People really don’t talk like that, especially the ex-con character Yo-Yo who said that phrase. Not even going to go into why she names a character “Yo-Yo” either.

What I really like about this book again is the hope & inspiration I see in relation to my own prayer group. These women really open up to each other and support each other. And I think that is what is missing in a lot of Christian circles. It’s common to hear someone talk about their struggles in such a vague sense that you can just replace Person A’s name with Person B’s name and you will have the same prayer request, the same testimony. How many times have we heard “God has brought me a long way. I used to be wild in my younger days you know but God saved me from it”? No, I really don’t know about your younger days, I don’t know what “wild” really is, and I don’t know what “younger” really means. Is “younger” 10 years ago, last year, or yesterday? What happens if that person really tells their testimony, tells what really happened. I’m sure someone in that congregation who is going through that same situation will have some hope, some real connection to another Christian because they now have hope through someone’s personal testimony. This is not me trying to nose in someone else’s business. This is me saying: When people really get real, and we respond to that realness with Christ-like love, that’s when the real benefits of Christianity become practical here on Earth (Psalms 27:13). But too often, people (including myself) remain vague about their struggles because they are not comfortable sharing something so intimate with others, risking their “good Church girl/guy” reputation. This book shows me the possibilities of what can happen when people remove the Church mask.

Okay, off my soapbox. This novel also let me be a peeping Tom into a world I had never considered before. I looked at the world through the eyes of a meek, sensitive, Christian white woman. There is no doubt in my mind that the author Neta Jackson uses herself as the model for the protagonist, Jodi Baxter. Jodi Baxter sees the world so differently from how I view it. And Jackson is not scared to write it in that way, maybe the author doesn’t know any other way. Jodi Baxter is so careful and cautious at times that I shook my head at her, wanting to just tell her to grow a pair, move on, just say what’s on your mind. And she is always tearing up at something touching or tragic. To be fair, I have a personal bias against tears; I see them as a sign of weakness and do my best not to let people see me cry. But, if someone says “boo” to her, tears start welling up. I wanted her to grow a backbone sooo many times. Non-issues to me become issues in the mind of this strictly Christian woman. And her amazement, bewilderment, and sometimes fear of certain Black women cracked me up. But, from the outside looking in, I guess we can be intimidating at times :).

I didn’t love it but I like this book. I like it more for my ability to connect this story to the events & possibilities in my personal life. If you are looking for an introduction to Christian fiction that isn’t preachy & overly formulaic, then this is it. And if you really like it, the Yada Yada Prayer Group is a series so there are at least 8 more books to keep you going.


Good Scripture
Psalm 27, 34, 125, 139
Hebrews 12, 13, 55
Isaiah 43, 49, 55

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones by Andrew McCall Smith

Have you ever read a soap opera? If not, then this is your book. The writing wasn’t terrible but I expected so much more because of the title. I was expecting something quirky but maybe it was trying too hard to be that as is evidenced by the title. Lesson learned: You cannot declare to be quirky; if you must, then you are not. The title was funny, the content was underwhelming.

Not to be too critical, the story wasn’t terrible but the way that it was put together was. This book was a product of a column the author has in a Scottish newspaper. Apparently, every week he would write a new installment in this series following the lives of affluent Scotsmen in Edinburgh. I suppose it was fine to read them in weekly installments. But, pulling it all together into a book with no extra seaming together of the often-disjoint chapters was the mistake. It was basically a copy-and-paste from the week-by-week articles. There was a flow within each chapter but there was no flow between the chapters to make it a novel.

The stories themselves followed 4 separate tracks. The 1st track followed an arrogant, handsome, status-hungry, 30-something stud-of-sorts who always got his way because of his charm and good looks. However, a turn of events led him to come to terms of who he really is and begin that humble journey to where he needs to be. The theme overall was honorable but the transition was rather superficial, leaving one to wonder if the change is really permanent or temporary. The 2nd track was a young family with an obsequious husband and an overbearing wife. Their young son seemed to be the only sane one who can see clearly what should be what. Of course, being the child, no one listened. Although, the boy did get a listener (finally!) in the psychotherapy sessions his mother forced him to attend, no change really occurred by the end of the novel. The 3rd track followed the thorny but loving relationship between two old friends, a man and a woman. And the 4th track was the newly wed couple. The wife almost lost the groom to a rip tide on their honeymoon.

Really those were the details worth sharing because all of these stories were half-formed. The yeast is still rising and it’s not ready to come out of the oven yet. I believe this is the 1st novel in a series about these Scottish folk so that would account for the lumpy dough that was left rising at the end of the novel. I guess I could find the conclusions to these stories over the rest of the series; the problem is the stories weren’t interesting enough to really care.

Division + Force = Divorce.

Wet with blood across the Turkish border with mom & dad

Wetlands by Charlotte Roche

The wetness is dripping off my fingers.
I'd ripped my ass open on the metal foot pedal of the hospital bed.
I did it to get my parents back together.
I didn't succeed.

That is the ride you take with Wetlands: sexual intrigue followed by something disgusting and ending with pity and despair.

I started this novel because I love great intros. It started with hemorrhoids: “As far back as I can remember, I’ve had hemorrhoids (pg 1, line 1)”. The author of this book states, “this is going to be one of those shocking & refreshing novels dispelling the illegitimate fears society has placed in women about the untidiness of our natural selves”. I was ready to examine the female body in an intense, personal, and unashamed way. I thought it would forever eradicate all self-conscious fears I had of my body: I am constantly concerned about smelling like fish (which any Massengil or Summer’s Eve commercial will convince you that you do). At the very least, I thought it would be interesting.

Interesting it was, shocking it was, refreshing definitely not. The novel is both erotic, repulsive, and sad, which leaves you feeling that the protagonist is just as unresolved & broken at the end of the novel as she was at the beginning.

What is supposed to pass as an unflinchingly glare into female anatomy and sexuality translates into a girl’s desperate plea to be loved by the ones who are supposed to love her: mom and dad. Her desperate plea is shouted with actions: the many men she beds, her exhibitionist nature to garner attention, and her abhorrence at being alone.

I learned nothing from this book as the protagonist learned nothing as well. She leaves, at the end, on the arms of a nurse she plans to bed when they get home, torn ass and all.

Bonus points: smegma was EVERYWHERE! :D



Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody with William Hoffer

I don’t normally read biographies but my mother has always thrown this story at me whenever I dated a foreigner. “He might kidnap your kids to his country and you’ll never get them back. Just like ‘Not Without My Daughter’”. Apparently this novel was a hit movie in the 80s that reinforced that Americans should stay with Americans. Or was the message that Americans should not marry Iranians? Hmmm…

Regardless, I picked up this novel since I had a 14-hour layover in Abu Dhabi on my trip home from Qatar. Add the fact that I am seriously dating a foreigner and there you have it: me sitting in a leather armchair at a closed coffee house reading the novel and waiting for the airport to open.

I finished all 518 pages before we reached the Atlantic (pat myself on the back). It was a fast read, it was action packed, and it had a good ending (the lady did get her daughter in the end, sorry to spoil that ending for you).

Throughout the novel, though, I wondered why this woman married this guy in the first place. Yes, he was kind and thoughtful when she met him but she didn’t respect his country or culture at all. Everything was fine as long as he acted American, was pro-America, and disassociated himself from Iranian culture. She allowed Iranian cooking into her life but that is as far as it was allowed to go. Her comfort zone was limited to American standards only. So, why would she marry a foreigner? Why did she not take time to understand his country and culture? Why was she shocked to learn that people do not stray far from their roots? It is not all this woman’s fault that she was deceived. Her husband, Moody, was also to blame. But I always feel there is more onus on the woman to investigate the potential pitfalls because the woman has more to lose out of the deal if the marriage goes awry.

The lesson I did learn from this woman’s story is to know not just your man but his country and culture too. If you cannot live with that, then you probably cannot live with him till death do you part.

The 4th Dimension is Time

In the last two books I’ve read, God or faith was either the underlying current or the main theme of the story. This surprised me a little but it should not in retrospect. There are few subjects as easily expandable as faith and love. And it makes it easy fodder to incorporate into a story because it stretches like clay and molds itself into any story. Perhaps the prevalence of faith in these last two stories was so striking to me because I have just come out of my "all improbable love" focus of the Twilight series (suffocating nonsense that does no one a good end but I digress). Let’s get on to them…

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

I read this book a long time ago as a child. One thing I can say about this book is that it is one of the first books I can remember loving. I remember being so excited about sharing new plot points with my mother and digging through the dictionary to learn all the new words (tesseract!) I found.

I loved it then and I still love it now. I cannot accurately transcribe why I love it so much (e.g. hope, self-awareness, despair, triumph, belief, victory) but I do. Funny, but when something is close to me, I have trouble explaining why it’s so close. Probably because it requires no explanation for me, it just is. The things you hold closest to you probably cannot be explained with tangible reasons. When you try to explain it in words the world can understand, it always robs the connection or cheapens it. That’s probably why I can never do Wuthering Heights the justice its review deserves. I’ve read it too many times to be objective.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

I didn’t like this book for 87/100 parts of the book but the 99th part saved it and made the read worth it in the end. This book had a good reputation but I purchased it mainly because of vanity. I needed a grown-up book to buy along with the purchase of the third Twilight book. I needed something mature to go along with my teen obsession.

The title alludes to a long, almost never-ending journey since pi, of course, is a never-ending number. It could be an allegory since our life is a never-ending journey. For most of us who believe in life after death, this is especially true.

The beginning started off interestingly enough. A multi-theist boy who loves God and seeks God in all the many ways we try to reach Him while here on Earth. But somewhere between the family’s trip from India to Canada, tedium set in and set in quickly. Chapters went by without comprehension because of the intricate attention to detail that only seemed to be put there to fill space on the page. It was not poorly written detail but it was not something an average reader could understand as being important or integral to the story. It almost seemed like the author had finished the story, realized it was too short, and went back and added copious amounts of details about the minutiae of the boy’s day. But perhaps it was not an afterthought. Perhaps the slow build-up and the lessons in patience in reading through the tedium were necessary to fully appreciate the moving ending.

Life of Pi is catalogued as a metaphysical novel. I think it missed the mark there. I am not that experienced in the genre; but, what I do know (which is strictly Paulo Coehlo books), disqualifies this as metaphysical. Metaphysical novels should move you beyond what you can physically see or comprehend. It is something that moves you in an intimate way, alters the course of your thought/emotional/spiritual pattern or at least makes you question it. This book is moving and it did arise questions. But the questions were only concerned with trying to interpret the message the author wanted to reveal. The message I discovered was important  but it did not move me past the initial point of the illumination.

It is a wonderful story that makes you think about God and the relationship God has with you. And for that reason only, it made the novel (with its tedium) worthwhile and a welcome surprise.

The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer

Danger is the word that comes to mind.
Not from the action, which was minimal to the bewilderment of my brother while he watched the movie (“I thought this was a vampire movie!”), but from the emotional and mental implications & validations impressed into young girls’ minds.

This will be less of a revue and more of a commentary on the social implications of this novel. The actual content in the book is not what mattered anyway. For those curious, the writing was elementary and made me feel qualified to become an author of teen chick lit. As soon as I saw the word “scintillating”, I knew this woman had the thesaurus in hand while writing these novels.

So, what about this poorly written book had teenage girls and adult women everywhere making this a #1 bestseller. From my own personal testimony, I started to hate the book after the 2nd novel. But I still found myself dragging myself to the store to purchase the 3rd and then the 4th book. It was like crack, I was addicted. And I didn’t even like the high anymore. I just wanted to know what happened so badly.

The hook was that it played to a warped psyche that many girls & women have developed. Why it developed, I have no idea but I know I have it and that is why it is so easy to recognize. It’s the classic story of the “bad” boy falling open & sweet exclusively for the shy, good girl. The good girl is the one who can see him for who he truly is, not the bad boy he portrays, but the good spirit hidden within. Why do we identify with this so much? Because we all like the guy with edge that makes us wonder. And if we could get him to open up to us (where no one else has succeeded), then that makes the victory that much sweeter and that much more special. It’s twisted indeed. Why do we want the dark/bad/edgy guy? Oooh, why? Why not the good guy who is really the brave one indeed because he is not afraid to put his heart out in the open? Because the good guy does not feel like a victory; there were no obstacles to defeat; no breakthroughs to make; everything was just easy. And, to be frank, easy is boring. Older, wiser women would prefer easy to challenging and they advise us younger women to do the same. However, the cycle repeats itself. And, one day, we will become the old women advising the younger women to do the same.

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This book glorifies this good-girl-gets-edgy-guy phenomenon to the letter. The guy is a vampire! She gives up humanity to be with this guy. Is this book promoting us to give up our lives for a man? I would not be so upset or consider it so dangerous if it were not for its intended audience: young teenage girls. This is the age when they start forming their expectations of men in a relationship. The foundation they build at this young age will be hard to change in later years. This book is romanticizing this very phenomenon and is enforcing this type of relationship as the standard for a lot of girls instead of the exception that it should be.


PS. On a funny (sad) note, I think I was doomed well before my teenage years. Back when I was 7 (no my memory is not that good but my diary was great), I used to like 2 guys. Donny, the nice boy, who treated me with care and respect. And Brandon, the cute boy, who only acknowledged me when he needed help with something. Guess whom I was smitten with in the end???