“Gifted” review
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007Finished “Gifted” last night. Here’s the review I wrote for LT/Random House:
I tried to pay a lot of attention to the details when I started “Gifted”, since I knew I’d be reviewing it. I was writing in the margins, noting style and tone. And then, by page 15 or so, I was sucked in. That was it; I was too interested in the story to pay much more attention to anything else. What that means is that the writing was good enough not to get in they way, that the characterizations were strong, the dialog was compelling, and that I really wanted to know what happened next. I was in there for good or ill until the end. Lalwani’s tale of culture clash in an Indian-British family rang true, and the characters of Rumi and her mother, Shreene, were both especially compelling.When the climax came, though, and the spell broke, I was a little disappointed. Things came to a close too abruptly for my taste. I was left feeling that there were scenes I needed to read, scenes that could have been there, but for the desire to end the story. Perhaps this isn’t true, but that’s the impression I was left with, which can never be good, right?
But on the whole, I knew I was in good hands with “Gifted”. Lalwani is really skilled with character and dialog. Future books should flesh out the themes of her work more fully.
———
In addition, I’ll add that I had a strong emotional response to the book. I can’t stand unfairness, and few things seem more unfair to me than a couple that raises children expecting them to turn away completely from the social mores and values of the culture they live in, and then condems them for failing to do so. So I got pretty steamed at the mother and father in this book. I also have a thing about tyranical patriarchs. The father in “Gifted” reminded me somewhat of the father in Naguib Mafouz’s Cairo trilogy. I couldn’t finish the first book in that series because I couldn’t take his hypocrisy. So I had a bit of a bad reaction to the last half of the book. I guess that’s one of the reasons I was so dissapointed with the end: I wanted the parents to weep and moan and realize how awful they’d been. Heh. Not quite.
God! I’m such a damn emotional reader! Does everyone read so subjectively? I feel like I’m taking a very immature approach here. I guess I made a concious decision to read this book as “reader”, not as a critic. But even when we read critically, don’t our own emotions and experiences always creep in?
