The World We Found - Thrity Umrigar

The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar
I've heard a lot of great things about Umrigar's writing. When I worked at Borders many customers would come in to buy The Space Between Us by the author. It was a very popular book club read. Having recently finished The World We Found, I understand Umrigar's appeal.

Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita and Nishta grew up together and were once very close. In the 1970's when things were changing in India, the four friends questioned and challenged authority. The novel begins in present day, they have grown apart and leading their own lives. Only Laleh and Kavita the two still living in Bombay are in regular contact. Though when Armaiti's reaches out to tell them she has a fatal from of cancer, Laleh and Kavita promise to find Nishta. Armaiti wishes to see her friends one last time.

The strength and beauty of Umrigar's writing is present from the start.

"The tooth broke three days after she received the awful news. There was no blood. No pain, even. For three days she had believed that it was her heart that had broken into tiny fragments, but turned out it was another part of her body that decided to mourn the news. No pain, no blood. Just a moment of puzzlement as she bit into the soft French toast she made for breakfast this morning and felt something hard and brittle in her mouth. She spat out two small pieces into her cupped hand. She rinsed her mouth with cold water, and only then did she look up into the mirror. Until now, her teeth had been as sturdy and even as piano keys; but then, until now her oldest friend in the world had not been dying. It was right somehow, in this week of reminders of mortality, that she sacrifice something too."

Before Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita and Nishta can be reunited, they must come to terms with and address an event that changed the course of their lives and friendships. Umrigar has crafted a beautifully emotional story. This was one of those novels that I loved falling into completely. I highly recommend The World We Found, and look forward to reading more by the author.

Read the first five chapters via publisher.

A few professional reviews via author's site.

Miss New India - Bharati Mukerjee

Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee
19 yr old Anjali Bose lives is Gauripaur. Her future is already preset. Anjali father is searching for her future husband. Anjali doesn't want to get married early or have her husband selected. She's also very smart, though living in a small town and being a woman she can't be too smart. Angjali is too big for Gauripaur but she doesn't know how to get out.

Peter Champion a former teacher encourages Anjali to leave and make a life for herself in Bangalore. After an awful encounter with the chosen husband to be, she sets off for Bangalore and a new life. I really enjoyed this story and was quickly drawn in by the writing.

"Angie Bose had lived nineteen years in Gauripur and was a year and a half from graduating with a degree from the best school in town, and no one had ever spoken to her about the nature of truth or art, or assumed she cared or knew anything about it. She knew there were plenty of pretty shots of the Taj Mahal- hard to mess that one up and the Himalayas and animals and famous faces but she'd never thought of them as plotted. Truth? Context? Composition? She'd never had a serious discussion about anything. She was the second daughter of a railway clerk; she was supposed to go to school, obey teachers and parents, graduate and get married, obey her husband, and have children. Truth was what the community, teachers, parents, and eventual husband said it was."

Mukherjee created a realistic and likable character in Anjali, a young woman who simply wants to find her place in the world. Miss New India is a great coming of age story.