Review

Rating: 9

i am not one to read short story novels. especially with no sex involved. though, the title story video did involve some. this book was a change for me because it was written by an indian author. it was harder to grasp the culture and idioms than the usual japanese, korean, chinese books that i read. but, fortunately, i do know quite a bit about the indian culture (though slim to none about their religion and less about the languages). i learned some interesting facts, and while some of the stories shared similarities, it was not repetitive rewording of idential plot ideas. i felt that the more i read, with each new chapter, the author became more comfortable in her style of writing, the writing style seemed so innocent that it was shocking when “curse words” as a characters string of thought, or lustrous scenes occured. her style of writing with incomplete sentences is similar to mine, so i felt as if i shared a kindred spirit with her. i did like how she captured the male and female characters equally and with almost the same voice. she managed to change the tone and point of view in almost all of the stories, while still having some trademark-ness left. my favorite stories were a certain sense of place, video, and vishu’s valentine day. i did not like curry tree because it was …w eird. about smell? she describes flavors of food very well in this story though. just remembered, a common thing about her storied was journalism. good way of incorporating local events.