Roopa Farooki

'the woman who commanded duty, deference and despair. She who must be obeyed, rising up from the past,', January 22, 2015

This review is from: The Good Children (Kindle Edition)
A very compelling read, following the four children of a well-to-do Lahore family from 1938 to the present. With an ineffectual father and a mother who 'was two people; comically girlish or tragically severe', the children have their futures planned: the two boys to study medicine abroad - their sister imagines an show more ideal son for her as 'the son who would find greatness abroad, and then return to Lahore and marry a pious local girl of good background' - and the two girls to make good marriages.
But their lives go in very different, and sometimes harmful, directions; psychologist Sulaman, emotionally damaged; GP Jakie, with his gay lover; Mae, who chooses her husband because she likes her future mother-in-law; and the rather less clearly defined and convincing Lana.
I think Sulaman in particular was wonderfully drawn - his difficulties in relating to people were utterly believable.Ms Farooki writes in different voices, and brings in snippets of the past as she relates the present. By the end the reader feels s/he knows the characters as real people.
Excellent read. show less

I really enjoyed Roopa Farooki's last novel, The Way Things Look to Me, so I have been looking forward to this one. And it did not disappoint. I thought this was a very well-crafted character study and a master class in how a novelist can make a thoroughly unlikable protagonist sympathetic. This is a deceptively simple book; there is a lot going on beneath the surface and it must have been incredibly difficult to pull off. One of my favorites on the Orange longlist this year.

I really enjoyed Roopa Farooki's last novel, The Way Things Look to Me, so I have been looking forward to this one. And it did not disappoint. I thought this was a very well-crafted character study and a master class in how a novelist can make a thoroughly unlikable protagonist sympathetic. This is a deceptively simple book; there is a lot going on beneath the surface and it must have been incredibly difficult to pull off. One of my favorites on the Orange longlist this year.

This novel starts off in Bangladesh, when Rashid (aka Ricky) Karim, a 17 year old youth with a promising future, is tricked into marrying Henna Rub, a manipulative and deceitful 13 year old, who sees marriage and subsequent motherhood as a way to escape school.

Years later, their daughter Shona elopes with a Pakistani who her family do not approve of. Shona and her husband Parvez run away to London, where money is short, but they are convinced that their love will keep them together. They show more have twin sons, Omar and Sharif.

As all three generations of the family negotiate their way through life, love and lies, they find themselves seemingly headed on a course to disaster. Will they ever find a way out of their tangled lives?

This book was a very pleasant surprise. When I started it, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it, but I found myself hooked on the story and eager to find out what would happen next. The tale takes place in London and Bangladesh, and I enjoyed the descriptions of both places.

If there is a main character, it is probably Shona; she is a beautifully drawn character, and so believable. She is intelligent and compassionate, but also has very human flaws, lying to herself as often as she tries to hide the truth from others. I liked her very much. The other characters are also well developed and easy to believe in.

The storyline had some twists and turns, and kept me hooked. The family soon became ensnared in the tangled web of lies of which they had become part. I had no idea how things would turn out, and thought that the ending when it came was very satisfying. There were themes of humour, sadness, anger and love running throughout the story; the title of this book is very apt, as it was certainly bittersweet.

This is the first book I’ve read by Roopa Farooki, but I am certainly going to seek out her other novels. show less