My last year’s agenda of reading more local Indian Authors continues in 2020 while trying to achieve #Goodreads yearly challenge.
I stumbled upon this book on #amazon’s #kindleunlimited and glanced at ratings. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from this novel so without checking reviews I started reading because it was meagre 65 pages and ‘based on real story’ was mentioned on cover page. Glad of my impulse (which is very rare) I liked the book so much that I decided to NOT review it on #instagram with few hash tags but on my blog which in itself is victorious seeing I abandoned blogging for a long time.
The story is setup in Mumbai, India and revolves around a teenage girl’s struggle within her family. The family dynamics shown are common even in well read upper middle class families of the country. How her father is away for work most of her life and how her twin brother is their mother’s favourite. This is about an intelligent girl with a difficult(in a way) childhood. How she appears to be an integral part of family but not priority. Even today, the parents and children relationship described through various incidents and dialogues are prevalent in India. Parents think they do everything to raise a child well without an iota of how their actions and ‘perfect upbringing’ is affecting mental health of the child. This novel also highlights how girl child is discriminated in families with good background, who focus on girl’s education but not her empowerment. How, many times unknowingly they sabotage their daughters.
An innocent in search of belonging often falls prey to vultures of society. Here, she falls for her maternal uncle who over years earn her interest and trust. When family becomes aware of her incest relationship with uncle they beat her black and blue and locks her down which deteriorates her mental health.
This novel shows how dysfunctional can families be without being aware of it and how the most fragile part of this institution(children) suffer’s in silence. The consequences many a times are grave.
When children do not get the love they deserve at home, they search for it outside. This more often than not leads to toxic, unacceptable and unhealthy relationships.
I recommend this book to every parent because unknowingly they all screw up parenting a little. They do try their best but it might still not be in best interest of their children. This is a real story and hope readers take valuable lessons from it.
happilyStruggling 