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Feb 12, 2018DanglingConversations rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Great way to get some background on pre WWII India up to the time of independence. Of course the heroine escaped death too many times to be realistic but she needed to survive to tell the story of India through the life of a low-born peasant orphaned by a tsunami through to learning English as a servant in a boarding school then on to the brothel system in British India and the dysfunctional government in India leading to its independence. I learned a lot and the writing is intelligent and entertaining. I was daunted by the Indian glossary at the front of the book but it is totally not necessary as the Indian words are easy to parse in context. And I did try the rice recipe at the end of the book.