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Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
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Secret Daughter (edition 2010)

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,8291409,191 (3.78)139
Interweaves the stories of a baby girl in India, the American doctor who adopted her, and the Indian mother who gave her up in favor of a son, as two families--one in India, the other in the United States--are changed by the child that connects them.
Member:Iudita
Title:Secret Daughter
Authors:Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Info:Harpercollins World (2010), Paperback, 352 pages
Collections:Your library, Favorites
Rating:*****
Tags:11, character driven, cultural

Work Information

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

  1. 30
    The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (jo2son)
    jo2son: Both books are about a girl who is raised from infancy by an adoptive parent.
  2. 20
    The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Anonymous user)
  3. 21
    A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (Cecilturtle)
  4. 10
    The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Anonymous user)
  5. 21
    Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Anonymous user)
  6. 10
    The Golden Son by Shilpi Somaya Gowda (vancouverdeb)
    vancouverdeb: Both books are by the same author.Though they are different stories, each one features characters from India trying to adapt to life in North America. Obviously ,similar story telling.
  7. 00
    Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (dara85)
  8. 00
    The Trade by Fred Stenson (Sandwich76)
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» See also 139 mentions

English (137)  Catalan (1)  Norwegian (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (140)
Showing 1-5 of 137 (next | show all)
Motherhood
  BooksInMirror | Feb 19, 2024 |
FROM AMAZON: Compelling tale about two families, worlds apart, linked by one Indian child. After giving birth to a girl for a second time, impoverished Kavita must give her up to an orphanage. The baby, named Asha, is adopted by an American doctor and raised in California. But once grown, Asha decides to return to India.

Explores powerfully and poignantly the emotional terrain of motherhood, loss, identity, and love through the experiences of two families—one Indian, one American—and the child that binds them together. A masterful work set partially in the Mumbai slums so vividly portrayed
  Gmomaj | Apr 15, 2023 |
Airplane read was absorbing tale of girl’s two families ( )
  cathy.lemann | Mar 21, 2023 |
Good story but fell kind of flat and predictable towards the end. I wanted a bit more. ( )
  trayseeta | Feb 13, 2022 |
The must-read book of the year! A stunning debut novel about the magnetic pull and power of family, both the one you are born into and the one you create.

When Kavita gives birth to a second daughter, she risks her life to give her daughter Usha a better life by giving her up for adoption.

In America, Somer, a blond-haired, blue-eyed doctor married to an Indian doctor, Krishnan, finally agrees to adopt an Indian child after several devastating miscarriages and early onset menopause.

The daughter, renamed Asha, becomes the tentative focal point between these two parallel lives of mothers who struggle to create a life both for themselves and their families.

Gowda knows human nature, understands the intricate bonds of family, shows empathy for cultural differences, and tells a fabulous story that will change your inner landscape.

I cannot wait to read her next book! ( )
  AngelaLam | Feb 8, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 137 (next | show all)
First-time author Shilpi Somaya Gowda brings to life two opposing but heart-rending concerns to jump-start her novel – infertility for North American women and the disregard for girls in India – through the stories of two families, the American Thakkars, both doctors, and the poverty-stricken Merchants in rural India..The novel is often emotionally poignant, especially when Gowda taps into the losses and fears that both mothers face, or as Asha slowly begins to appreciate what a family in all its intricacies can mean.
 
In her engaging debut, Gowda weaves together two compelling stories... Gowda writes with compassion and uncanny perception ..., while portraying the vibrant traditions, sights, and sounds of modern India.
added by ShilpiGowda | editBooklist, Deborah Donovan (Jan 1, 2010)
 

Dualities abound in this engrossing first novel by Dallas writer Shilpi Somaya Gowda.

The story arcs over 25 years in two nations with very different cultures: India and the United States. The narrative follows two sets of parents, and at the heart of the tale are two children..The sounds, scents and sights of India are vividly drawn, pulling the reader deep into a culture that most of us have only glimpsed, perhaps, in Slumdog Millionaire. Two worlds collide, then meld, in a story that intimately considers how we all are shaped, through fate or free will, nurture or nature, by the astounding power of family love
 
“First novelist Gowda offers especially vivid descriptions of the contrasts and contradictions of modern India … Rife with themes that lend themselves to discussion, such as cultural identity, adoption, and women's roles.”
added by ShilpiGowda | editLibrary Journal
 
"[A] fable of family division and reconciliation, gaining intensity and depth from the author’s sharp social observations.”
added by ShilpiGowda | editKirkus Reviews
 

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Dedication
For my parents --
for giving much in their lives
so that anything might be possible in mine
First words
He clutches the worn slip of paper in his hand, trying to compare the letters written there to the red sign hanging on the door in front of him.
Quotations
Her mother always said the key to a successful marriage was for each spouse to give as much as they thought they possibly could. And then, to give a little more. Somewhere in that extra giving, in the space created by generosity without score keeping, was the difference between marriages that thrived and those that didn't.
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Interweaves the stories of a baby girl in India, the American doctor who adopted her, and the Indian mother who gave her up in favor of a son, as two families--one in India, the other in the United States--are changed by the child that connects them.

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Book description
A stunning debut novel that explores the emotional terrain of motherhood, loss, identity and culture, witnessed through the lives of two families, one Indian, one American, and the daughter who indelibly binds them.

Somer's life is everything she imagined it would be — she's newly married and has started her career as a physician in San Francisco — until she makes the devastating discovery she never will be able to have children.

The same year in India, a poor mother makes the heartbreaking choice to save her newborn daughter's life by giving her away. It is a decision that will haunt Kavita for the rest of her life, and cause a ripple effect that travels across the world and back again.

Asha, adopted out of a Mumbai orphanage, is the child that binds the destinities of these two women. We follow both familes, invisibly connected until Asha's journey of self-discovery leads her back to India.

Compulsively readable and deeply touching, SECRET DAUGHTER is a story of the unforeseen ways in which our choices and families affect our lives, and the indelible power of love in all its many forms.
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