A Fine Balance
Rohinton Mistry
"I read A Fine Balance, and I was just looking for a book to read and this is a book that at least was nominated for Booker Prize, and so I figured it had to be worth my time reading it.
The book is about these four characters who come from entirely separate backgrounds, and it's set in India during the 70's when Indira Ghandi kind of forced her way back into power and then declared a state of emergency over India. So the four characters all come to live in this one apartment, and it's owned by this woman who, she is a really unique character set in that time period because she's very independent. She was widowed early, and chose not to remarry, and chose not to live with her family, and struggled for years to maintain her own separate life.
The book really explores the caste system in India in a way that explains - if you don't understand what it is, it explains - it makes you feel how horrible it would be to be in the lower caste; and it also really describes what it must have been like to live in that political upheaval.
I didn't like - and this is just a personal thing of the book - it didn't end happy, and I didn't like that; but the book wouldn't have made sense had it had a storybook ending. I would give A Fine Balance four stars."
RSS feed 
