QHS Book Review: A Burning by Megha Majumdar
A magically told story of dreams, corruption and discrimination in contemporary India.
By: Benjamin Robinson, book reviewer
A magically told story of dreams, corruption and discrimination in contemporary India.
By: Benjamin Robinson, book reviewer
Review:
A Burning is a story of three main characters that takes place in contemporary India. It follows each character separately, which means it almost has three separate plots. This allows the book to constantly be engaging and interesting, you definitely will not get bored with this book. You’d think that this may make the book slightly confusing going back and forth between three different stories, but the author does a beautiful job of intertwining these three characters' stories into each other. It’s hard to describe; it is almost as if there is one main plot, but the experiences and perspectives of the main plot are told separately by the three characters. Each character has their own sort of dream; Jivan wants to be middle class, PT Sir wants to be a powerful political figure, and Lovely wants to be a movie star. Their journeys to these positions in life is what the book tells, but with twists and turns, and the actions of one character affecting the lives of the others, makes it so much more.
It is a story of injustice and corruption, as well as discrimnation in contemporary India. There is a huge focus on discrimnation. The book shows the discrimnation against Musliums, women, and the hijra (a sort of third gender role in India, they are transgender people, but in India it is not that simple). This book is very impactful for a few reasons. The injustice it details, alone, appeals to so many emotions of the reader and really makes you connect with that character. This book takes place in India and for the western audience like you and me who do not learn a lot, if anything, about these cultures and societies this book is a very beautiful and powerful introduction into literature about these Asian settings.
However, my one stipulation is that some of the purposefully incorrect grammar that's meant to reflect the characters intellect is hard to tell if it is simply meant to do that or if it’s just mistakes and odd sentence structures, it’s not obvious to us which one of those explanations is the case. This makes parts of it slightly annoying to read because it just makes you think “what?” and furthermore one of the characters does not even speak English, (however, don’t worry, it is all written in English) she speaks Bengali. So what is the point in making her sections have grammatical errors? It leads me to believe that these could possibly have another purpose but again it just is not obvious at all what that could be. This is a minor issue, though, and I still think this is a 5 star book. It was excellently plotted, perfectly paced, and its structure itself was very interesting to read. Honestly, I could not put this book down; most importantly, it was impactful to me and makes me want to read more books about different cultures. This book just hit different.
My Rating System**:
5 stars - an excellent or great book that has a big impact on me or I simply cannot stop thinking about, it simply hits different.
4 stars - excellently written, genuisly plotted, great books. These books just don’t have the same kind of impact on me as 5 star books.
3 stars - these are just good books, nothing super special but definitely not bad.
2 stars - these are just books, they are not good books nor are they terrible books, they simply exist and I do not care about them.
1 star - these books are bad, I hate these books and think they should be burned off of everyone's bookshelf.
**Disclaimer: Book ratings are extremely subjective and sometimes I just rate a book with what feels right for that book. Or with how that book made me feel about it throughout my time reading it. Sometimes a book could receive 5 stars but I may only give it 4 stars for a variety of reasons, which will be explained in the review.**
A Burning is a story of three main characters that takes place in contemporary India. It follows each character separately, which means it almost has three separate plots. This allows the book to constantly be engaging and interesting, you definitely will not get bored with this book. You’d think that this may make the book slightly confusing going back and forth between three different stories, but the author does a beautiful job of intertwining these three characters' stories into each other. It’s hard to describe; it is almost as if there is one main plot, but the experiences and perspectives of the main plot are told separately by the three characters. Each character has their own sort of dream; Jivan wants to be middle class, PT Sir wants to be a powerful political figure, and Lovely wants to be a movie star. Their journeys to these positions in life is what the book tells, but with twists and turns, and the actions of one character affecting the lives of the others, makes it so much more.
It is a story of injustice and corruption, as well as discrimnation in contemporary India. There is a huge focus on discrimnation. The book shows the discrimnation against Musliums, women, and the hijra (a sort of third gender role in India, they are transgender people, but in India it is not that simple). This book is very impactful for a few reasons. The injustice it details, alone, appeals to so many emotions of the reader and really makes you connect with that character. This book takes place in India and for the western audience like you and me who do not learn a lot, if anything, about these cultures and societies this book is a very beautiful and powerful introduction into literature about these Asian settings.
However, my one stipulation is that some of the purposefully incorrect grammar that's meant to reflect the characters intellect is hard to tell if it is simply meant to do that or if it’s just mistakes and odd sentence structures, it’s not obvious to us which one of those explanations is the case. This makes parts of it slightly annoying to read because it just makes you think “what?” and furthermore one of the characters does not even speak English, (however, don’t worry, it is all written in English) she speaks Bengali. So what is the point in making her sections have grammatical errors? It leads me to believe that these could possibly have another purpose but again it just is not obvious at all what that could be. This is a minor issue, though, and I still think this is a 5 star book. It was excellently plotted, perfectly paced, and its structure itself was very interesting to read. Honestly, I could not put this book down; most importantly, it was impactful to me and makes me want to read more books about different cultures. This book just hit different.
My Rating System**:
5 stars - an excellent or great book that has a big impact on me or I simply cannot stop thinking about, it simply hits different.
4 stars - excellently written, genuisly plotted, great books. These books just don’t have the same kind of impact on me as 5 star books.
3 stars - these are just good books, nothing super special but definitely not bad.
2 stars - these are just books, they are not good books nor are they terrible books, they simply exist and I do not care about them.
1 star - these books are bad, I hate these books and think they should be burned off of everyone's bookshelf.
**Disclaimer: Book ratings are extremely subjective and sometimes I just rate a book with what feels right for that book. Or with how that book made me feel about it throughout my time reading it. Sometimes a book could receive 5 stars but I may only give it 4 stars for a variety of reasons, which will be explained in the review.**