What do you think?
Rate this book
Miss Timmins' School for Girls
A murder at a British boarding school in the hills of western India launches a young teacher on the journey of a lifetime
In 1974, three weeks before her twenty-first birthday, Charulata Apte arrives at Miss Timmins' School for Girls in Panchgani. Shy, sheltered, and running from a scandal that disgraced her Brahmin family, Charu finds herself teaching Shakespeare to rich Indian girls in a boarding school still run like an outpost of the British Empire. In this small, foreign universe, Charu is drawn to the charismatic teacher Moira Prince, who introduces her to pot-smoking hippies, rock ‘n' roll, and freedoms she never knew existed.
Then one monsoon night, a body is found at the bottom of a cliff, and the ordered worlds of school and town are thrown into chaos. When Charu is implicated in the murder—a case three intrepid schoolgirls take it upon themselves to solve—Charu's real education begins. A love story and a murder mystery, Miss Timmins' School for Girls is, ultimately, a coming-of-age tale set against the turbulence of the 1970s as it played out in one small corner of India.
In 1974, three weeks before her twenty-first birthday, Charulata Apte arrives at Miss Timmins' School for Girls in Panchgani. Shy, sheltered, and running from a scandal that disgraced her Brahmin family, Charu finds herself teaching Shakespeare to rich Indian girls in a boarding school still run like an outpost of the British Empire. In this small, foreign universe, Charu is drawn to the charismatic teacher Moira Prince, who introduces her to pot-smoking hippies, rock ‘n' roll, and freedoms she never knew existed.
Then one monsoon night, a body is found at the bottom of a cliff, and the ordered worlds of school and town are thrown into chaos. When Charu is implicated in the murder—a case three intrepid schoolgirls take it upon themselves to solve—Charu's real education begins. A love story and a murder mystery, Miss Timmins' School for Girls is, ultimately, a coming-of-age tale set against the turbulence of the 1970s as it played out in one small corner of India.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
54 people are currently reading
2493 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 269 reviews
September 11, 2017
I enjoyed the book but this is why you can't trust straight women/bi women to write about lesbians.
Look at the plot: lesbian helps girl realize her sexuality and then is murdered, leaving girl to move on and fall in love with men, questioning whether she really was into women at all or was that a one time thing. Interesting that the sex with the male character is detailed but not the lesbian sex. Interesting that the male character who is super into her despite knowing that she's into women gets his desire - after the lesbian character dies, she falls into his arms. Interesting at the preoccupation with and never questioning of the concept of piv centric virginity. Interesting that the writer chose to make the lesbian character the white character - doubly an outsider with deviant ways who can be forgotten. It's just disappointing but this is how non lesbians write lesbians tbh.
Look at the plot: lesbian helps girl realize her sexuality and then is murdered, leaving girl to move on and fall in love with men, questioning whether she really was into women at all or was that a one time thing. Interesting that the sex with the male character is detailed but not the lesbian sex. Interesting that the male character who is super into her despite knowing that she's into women gets his desire - after the lesbian character dies, she falls into his arms. Interesting at the preoccupation with and never questioning of the concept of piv centric virginity. Interesting that the writer chose to make the lesbian character the white character - doubly an outsider with deviant ways who can be forgotten. It's just disappointing but this is how non lesbians write lesbians tbh.
April 3, 2011
Miss Timmins School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy.
I loved this book. It's hard to believe it's a debut novel. My worst criticism was that I found it a little long and that it occasionally dragged a bit. On the other hand, I loved it so much, part of me wanted it to last even longer!
The story takes place in a boarding school in India, where upper class girls mix with British missionaries and rock and roll, drugs, and other influences of the time-it is the mid 1970's and the times, well, they truly are a-changing.
Our heroine is Charu, a new teacher at Miss Timmins. It's her first job and she is barely older-or more experienced than the girls she is teaching.. She forms a friendship with another teacher with a very different personality and lifestyle. Moira prince has joined the 70s with a vengeance and it is through her that Charu meets the world of hot music and illicit drugs.
And where, Charu is left to wonder, does the Shakespeare she's been hired to teach, fit into this new world?
This book is a beautiful well-written novel. So good a novel, in fact, that I forgot it is a murder mystery. So I was appropriately surprised when in the middle of monsoon season, at night (of course) a teacher is murdered and the carefully ordered life of Miss Timmins oh-so-proper life is thrown into the chaos of the world, a chaos already happening in the rest of the world. The school's careful surface is shattereed and the local town is delighted to jump upon it with gossip and speculation.
It is now that Charu begins both her real adult life and true education. Perhaps too predictably, she becomes a suspectIt's 1974.
The murdered teacher was pushed from the highland known as The Tablelands and there were many potential suspects, each holding their own secrets and motives to murder the victim.
I enjoyed this book as a murder mystery but also as so much more. It was fascinating to read about the India of the 70s with the sudden clash of Indian culture, British imperialism, and the new wave of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll (the 2 last subjects already of prime interest to me). So as a lover of murder mysteries and as a lover of political-sociological studies (especially when presented in compelling fictional form) this book had me hooked.
The characters are well-drawn. Not only are the major characters fascinating but all of the minor ones as well had distinct voices and stories and caught my interest. Currimbhoy is a wonderful writer who takes the murder mystery beyond its genre (as good mysteries do) to examine issues of class and social mores.
And it doesn't hurt that the story takes place in one of my favorite venues-a boarding school. Boarding schools seems to create a world onto their own, full of the intensity of adolescent friendships and angsts and teacher eccentricities. I loved books set in boarding schools when I was a child and adolescent and now, on the other side of life, I love reading them as a teacher.
This is a wonderful book that I recommend not only to lovers of mysteries but to all lovers of fiction and those interested in how world upheavals play out on the smallest scales.
I hope everyone reads this book.
I loved this book. It's hard to believe it's a debut novel. My worst criticism was that I found it a little long and that it occasionally dragged a bit. On the other hand, I loved it so much, part of me wanted it to last even longer!
The story takes place in a boarding school in India, where upper class girls mix with British missionaries and rock and roll, drugs, and other influences of the time-it is the mid 1970's and the times, well, they truly are a-changing.
Our heroine is Charu, a new teacher at Miss Timmins. It's her first job and she is barely older-or more experienced than the girls she is teaching.. She forms a friendship with another teacher with a very different personality and lifestyle. Moira prince has joined the 70s with a vengeance and it is through her that Charu meets the world of hot music and illicit drugs.
And where, Charu is left to wonder, does the Shakespeare she's been hired to teach, fit into this new world?
This book is a beautiful well-written novel. So good a novel, in fact, that I forgot it is a murder mystery. So I was appropriately surprised when in the middle of monsoon season, at night (of course) a teacher is murdered and the carefully ordered life of Miss Timmins oh-so-proper life is thrown into the chaos of the world, a chaos already happening in the rest of the world. The school's careful surface is shattereed and the local town is delighted to jump upon it with gossip and speculation.
It is now that Charu begins both her real adult life and true education. Perhaps too predictably, she becomes a suspectIt's 1974.
The murdered teacher was pushed from the highland known as The Tablelands and there were many potential suspects, each holding their own secrets and motives to murder the victim.
I enjoyed this book as a murder mystery but also as so much more. It was fascinating to read about the India of the 70s with the sudden clash of Indian culture, British imperialism, and the new wave of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll (the 2 last subjects already of prime interest to me). So as a lover of murder mysteries and as a lover of political-sociological studies (especially when presented in compelling fictional form) this book had me hooked.
The characters are well-drawn. Not only are the major characters fascinating but all of the minor ones as well had distinct voices and stories and caught my interest. Currimbhoy is a wonderful writer who takes the murder mystery beyond its genre (as good mysteries do) to examine issues of class and social mores.
And it doesn't hurt that the story takes place in one of my favorite venues-a boarding school. Boarding schools seems to create a world onto their own, full of the intensity of adolescent friendships and angsts and teacher eccentricities. I loved books set in boarding schools when I was a child and adolescent and now, on the other side of life, I love reading them as a teacher.
This is a wonderful book that I recommend not only to lovers of mysteries but to all lovers of fiction and those interested in how world upheavals play out on the smallest scales.
I hope everyone reads this book.
May 20, 2014
This book was selected for our lib book club which meets in two days. I loooooved the last book we read (Beautiful Ruins). I can't say the same about this one. I must divulge that I only read 130 pages. I can tell you that those 130 pages were read painstakingly in 5 page increments. It was ever so slow and tedious. From those 130 pages, I can't really find anything good about this book. The characters were flat. The writing was atrocious. The plot was lacking. Do things turn around on page 131? Possibly. But if I have to slog through that many pages to get to something worth my time? Sorry, I just can't stick around. I hate to go to the book club meeting with only a quarter of the book under my belt. However...the other option would be to suffer through another 300 pages. I'd hate that even more.
June 18, 2019
A literary mystery set in a girls' boarding school in India in the '70s. Lots of pot and acid, a queer romance, and all kinds of secrets and intrigue. You get the perspective of a young teacher who becomes a suspect in a murder, as well as a bright student who sees more than she truly understands. Perhaps a bit overlong for me at 500 pages, but if you're looking for the quiet, creeping kind of mystery instead of the flash-bang kind, this will be your speed.
January 13, 2012
It's 1974. Charu has just been hired to teach at Miss Timmins' School for Girls. She is a first-time teacher, nearly as young and impressionable as her students.
Moira Prince also teaches at Miss Timmins'. She is unorthodox, a bit older, worldly, and troubled. Miss Prince, nicknamed Pin, has a mysterious connection with the school's director, and seems to have cast a spell on Charu, who becomes deeply involved with her and the group of bohemians who are her friends.
One night, Pin seems especially disturbed. she is found dead at the foot of a cliff, under a rock formation known as The Needle.
The police determine that she was pushed, leaving many questions about her death.
That night, there were many others up on The Tablelands, near The Needle, including Charu. Each has their own secrets, and each is a possible murderer.
I loved this book! Currimbhoy is very talented, especially when it comes to speaking in a character's voice, and for description.
This book drew me in immediately. The back stories of the characters, and their distinct voices made them seem almost real. The setting was magical...a Hogwarts for girls in one of th4 most fascinating, exotic locations with fantastic rock formations and a cave/den of illegal activity, all set in an Indian hill station.
This was Currimbhoy's first novel. I hope and expect to see much more of her. I definitely think she is a rising literary star.
If I noticed any flaw, it was that the plot's resolution was a bit weak...signalled too strongly and too early. Everything else, though, more than made up for that. It's possible I felt that way about the ending because I finished the book after a night without any sleep. Flawed or not, I loved this book, and as this was the author's first novel, the author's writing will be even stronger in the future.
Moira Prince also teaches at Miss Timmins'. She is unorthodox, a bit older, worldly, and troubled. Miss Prince, nicknamed Pin, has a mysterious connection with the school's director, and seems to have cast a spell on Charu, who becomes deeply involved with her and the group of bohemians who are her friends.
One night, Pin seems especially disturbed. she is found dead at the foot of a cliff, under a rock formation known as The Needle.
The police determine that she was pushed, leaving many questions about her death.
That night, there were many others up on The Tablelands, near The Needle, including Charu. Each has their own secrets, and each is a possible murderer.
I loved this book! Currimbhoy is very talented, especially when it comes to speaking in a character's voice, and for description.
This book drew me in immediately. The back stories of the characters, and their distinct voices made them seem almost real. The setting was magical...a Hogwarts for girls in one of th4 most fascinating, exotic locations with fantastic rock formations and a cave/den of illegal activity, all set in an Indian hill station.
This was Currimbhoy's first novel. I hope and expect to see much more of her. I definitely think she is a rising literary star.
If I noticed any flaw, it was that the plot's resolution was a bit weak...signalled too strongly and too early. Everything else, though, more than made up for that. It's possible I felt that way about the ending because I finished the book after a night without any sleep. Flawed or not, I loved this book, and as this was the author's first novel, the author's writing will be even stronger in the future.
June 20, 2013
Well, if you like coming-of-age stories that imply that coming of age necessitates drugs and selfish sexuality, you will be in for a treat. Also, if you enjoy an inconsistent writing style and a confusing, hopeless ending, you will love this book. In case I haven't been clear enough, I hated this book and threw it down at the end with the frustration of the lack of redemption that came at the end of the book. Ugh.
June 15, 2020
It is 1974 and Charulata (Charu), who comes from a good Brahmin family, just graduated from college and wants to find a teaching job in cosmopolitan Bombay. Instead, her parents agree to allow her to teach for one year at an all-girls boarding school in the hills of Panchgani. Her parents fear that Charu will have trouble finding a husband because of her strawberry birth mark on her face. The school, originally built for the daughters of British colonists, now caters to girls from wealthy Indian, mostly Christian, families. Charu is the only Hindu on the staff. She isn’t the only faculty outsider, however. There is also the drinking, smoking Moira Prince, the mercurial sports teacher, and they find themselves drawn to each other…a murder happens, the police arrest the wrong man…more stuff happens…I grew bored.
Miss Timmin’s School for Girls didn’t quite work for me. I think it tried to be too many things: a murder mystery, a coming of age story, a boarding school/campus novel, an exposé of the echoes of racist colonial attitudes in modern India, a family tragedy... The author also sort of tries to use the monsoons in the way that Chandler uses the Santa Ana winds in the short story Red Wind. That is a lot to tackle - in a debut novel no less - and it failed for me in its synthesis. I was mainly bored reading from Charu’s perspective which is the bulk of the book. I liked reading the middle part from Nandita’s, one of the borders, point of view. But I also don’t really see, as much as I enjoyed it, why it was there? It could have been easily cut and those plot points contained in it worked in to Charu’s narration.
Miss Timmin’s School for Girls didn’t quite work for me. I think it tried to be too many things: a murder mystery, a coming of age story, a boarding school/campus novel, an exposé of the echoes of racist colonial attitudes in modern India, a family tragedy... The author also sort of tries to use the monsoons in the way that Chandler uses the Santa Ana winds in the short story Red Wind. That is a lot to tackle - in a debut novel no less - and it failed for me in its synthesis. I was mainly bored reading from Charu’s perspective which is the bulk of the book. I liked reading the middle part from Nandita’s, one of the borders, point of view. But I also don’t really see, as much as I enjoyed it, why it was there? It could have been easily cut and those plot points contained in it worked in to Charu’s narration.
April 21, 2015
Miss Timmins’ School for Girls, by Nayana Currimbhoy, might be described as a mystery, a classic whodunit murder story. But it can also equally be called a romance, a coming of age story, and an historical novel set in 1970s India. It’s perhaps because this book is all those things and more that makes it such a successful, entertaining read.
Don’t start Miss Timmins’ School for Girls right before you go to bed, because this is a book that sucks you in immediately with a flash forward to the death that is central to the plot. Of course, you remember that this death is going to happen as you keep reading, but because you hadn’t met any of the characters at that point, it starts to feel fuzzier and fuzzier until mid-book, when it actually happens and it’s shocking, and you can’t believe you’re only half way through the story. What could possibly happen next?
The first part is a lot of fun to read: you follow Charu, a 21-year-old middle class “good Brahmin girl” whose parents are tentatively letting her out into the world, to work as a teaching at a British boarding school tucked away in a monsoon-ridden mountainous corner of India. It’s the 70s, right, so there’s all that talk of free love, mind-expanding drugs, and new freedoms, and Charu has never heard of any of it until she’s introduced through her new friends, including a white girl raised in India who also happens to be a lesbian. You can probably guess the romance that buds between the two women, and it’s pretty cute, and exciting, and realistic. Currimbhoy does a great job with characterisation, making both women likable, flawed, and just complex enough to frustrate the reader sometimes.
But it’s only the first half of the book that focuses on the romance: just when I wondered how Currimbhoy was going to continue telling the story, she switches narrative perspective, and we suddenly start hearing it from the point of view of one of the girls at the school. This was disorienting at first, but plot-wise very effective, allowing Currimbhoy to describe the action from a less emotionally involved and knowing angle. In some ways I don’t want to say much about the second half, because it somehow feels like a spoiler, even though you actually find out who dies in the first few pages of the book. But I think you’re meant to kind of forget, or at least this was my experience, so I don’t want to ruin it for you.
One thing I will tell you, is that we discover Charu isn’t exclusively attracted to women, which was a nice surprise for me, always on the lookout for dynamic bisexual characters. Also, the teenage girls were really great to read about too: there’s something about the trope of all these girls pent up in a boarding school—especially this one, where the monsoons keep them stuck inside—that creates an atmosphere ripe for all sorts of mischief. Also, I think I’m just attracted in some perverse way to the routine and orderliness of a boarding school—I’ve always kind of wished I could have gone to one (and got to wear the uniform).
Aside from the boarding school teen girl antics, there is of course a murder to be solved. I am notoriously terrible at this kind of investigation, so those readers who are schooled in figuring out whodunit would likely fare better than I did. I was totally stunned by every twist, but, again, mystery is not my literary forte. The thing is, the mystery is really only part of the novel, even in the second half, so if you’re either a mystery buff or someone who normally doesn’t read mystery, I think there’s a little something for everyone from this really standout first novel from Nayana Currimbhoy.
Don’t start Miss Timmins’ School for Girls right before you go to bed, because this is a book that sucks you in immediately with a flash forward to the death that is central to the plot. Of course, you remember that this death is going to happen as you keep reading, but because you hadn’t met any of the characters at that point, it starts to feel fuzzier and fuzzier until mid-book, when it actually happens and it’s shocking, and you can’t believe you’re only half way through the story. What could possibly happen next?
The first part is a lot of fun to read: you follow Charu, a 21-year-old middle class “good Brahmin girl” whose parents are tentatively letting her out into the world, to work as a teaching at a British boarding school tucked away in a monsoon-ridden mountainous corner of India. It’s the 70s, right, so there’s all that talk of free love, mind-expanding drugs, and new freedoms, and Charu has never heard of any of it until she’s introduced through her new friends, including a white girl raised in India who also happens to be a lesbian. You can probably guess the romance that buds between the two women, and it’s pretty cute, and exciting, and realistic. Currimbhoy does a great job with characterisation, making both women likable, flawed, and just complex enough to frustrate the reader sometimes.
But it’s only the first half of the book that focuses on the romance: just when I wondered how Currimbhoy was going to continue telling the story, she switches narrative perspective, and we suddenly start hearing it from the point of view of one of the girls at the school. This was disorienting at first, but plot-wise very effective, allowing Currimbhoy to describe the action from a less emotionally involved and knowing angle. In some ways I don’t want to say much about the second half, because it somehow feels like a spoiler, even though you actually find out who dies in the first few pages of the book. But I think you’re meant to kind of forget, or at least this was my experience, so I don’t want to ruin it for you.
One thing I will tell you, is that we discover Charu isn’t exclusively attracted to women, which was a nice surprise for me, always on the lookout for dynamic bisexual characters. Also, the teenage girls were really great to read about too: there’s something about the trope of all these girls pent up in a boarding school—especially this one, where the monsoons keep them stuck inside—that creates an atmosphere ripe for all sorts of mischief. Also, I think I’m just attracted in some perverse way to the routine and orderliness of a boarding school—I’ve always kind of wished I could have gone to one (and got to wear the uniform).
Aside from the boarding school teen girl antics, there is of course a murder to be solved. I am notoriously terrible at this kind of investigation, so those readers who are schooled in figuring out whodunit would likely fare better than I did. I was totally stunned by every twist, but, again, mystery is not my literary forte. The thing is, the mystery is really only part of the novel, even in the second half, so if you’re either a mystery buff or someone who normally doesn’t read mystery, I think there’s a little something for everyone from this really standout first novel from Nayana Currimbhoy.
April 26, 2011
I expected this book to be a whodunnit set in India in 1974; the description seemed to indicate a boarding-school book set in a time of social upheaval.
What I didn't expect was such an intense and complicated set of characters, the clash of Indian caste culture with British boarding-school rules.
Charu Apte is a Brahmin girl who graduates from college and wants to be a teacher. Her parents reluctantly agree because they know the prospects for her to marry are slim to none, due to a disfiguring mark on her face. She gives up her dream of teaching in Bombay, due to her parents' insistence that she instead go somewhere safe. She ends up at an anachronistic boarding school in a district of mountains in India where she is part of a group of misfit teachers and locals who don't exactly fit in with the proper British teachers of the institution.
Charu befriends a local eccentric and a strange teacher with terrible secrets. When one of her friends is found dead at the base of a cliff, Charu finds herself suspected, along with multiple others. Suspicions and gossip and scandal break loose throughout the village and follow the principal players for far too long.
This is not a tidily summed up book, and along the way with the mystery, we follow Charu's breaking away from social mores of her family, the modernization of her culture, her experimentation with sex, drugs and rock and roll, and how she tries to forget her disfigurement.
This was an intense, fascinating book that I could NOT put down. I literally read the entire book in one day, curled up in a chair as it rained outside, almost imagining I was in the middle of the monsoons. This is a transporting, captivating and unsettling book. I was fortunate to read an advance copy; the book will be released June 21st. Another one I suggest you pre-order!
What I didn't expect was such an intense and complicated set of characters, the clash of Indian caste culture with British boarding-school rules.
Charu Apte is a Brahmin girl who graduates from college and wants to be a teacher. Her parents reluctantly agree because they know the prospects for her to marry are slim to none, due to a disfiguring mark on her face. She gives up her dream of teaching in Bombay, due to her parents' insistence that she instead go somewhere safe. She ends up at an anachronistic boarding school in a district of mountains in India where she is part of a group of misfit teachers and locals who don't exactly fit in with the proper British teachers of the institution.
Charu befriends a local eccentric and a strange teacher with terrible secrets. When one of her friends is found dead at the base of a cliff, Charu finds herself suspected, along with multiple others. Suspicions and gossip and scandal break loose throughout the village and follow the principal players for far too long.
This is not a tidily summed up book, and along the way with the mystery, we follow Charu's breaking away from social mores of her family, the modernization of her culture, her experimentation with sex, drugs and rock and roll, and how she tries to forget her disfigurement.
This was an intense, fascinating book that I could NOT put down. I literally read the entire book in one day, curled up in a chair as it rained outside, almost imagining I was in the middle of the monsoons. This is a transporting, captivating and unsettling book. I was fortunate to read an advance copy; the book will be released June 21st. Another one I suggest you pre-order!
February 10, 2013
Miss Timmins' School for Girls is a fictional boarding school located amongst the scenic hills and volcanic plateaus of Panchgani (lit. five volcanoes) in the state of Maharashtra, India. What makes Timmins stand out from the other local schools is that it used to be an all-white school for climate-sensitive British girls who couldn't stand the heat. Now, in 1974, it's an exclusive school for rich Indian girls whose families want them to have an authentic British education. It's at the brink of entering this snobbish and insular world that we meet Charu.
Charulata "Charu" Apte (Or "The Apt" as the schoolgirls say) has ambitions of being a chic Bombay girl, but for now, will settle for a teaching post at Timmins if it's a step toward freedom. She has what the girls refer to as a vernacular accent, a burdensome family history, and a disfiguring blot on her face that no amount of holistic treatment can cure.
By day, she teaches Shakespeare and makes nice with the ladies on the staff, by all accounts the good Marathi girl her parents have raised her to be. By night, or rather by weekend, she finds herself drawn into the local scene of sex/drugs/rock'n'roll, opening up a vivid world of adventures and literature and self-discovery. Over the course of these weekend escapades she falls in love with a lady-teacher called The Prince, attracts the attention of the local man of mystery who turns out to be an easygoing bibliophile, and ultimately learns to love herself. There are times when she can barely even see the blot on her face.
At this point, about a third of the way through, I liked the book well enough — I liked seeing Charu expand her world and become braver inside and out of her classroom — but the book was hovering around a 3/5 for me. I think I felt a disconnect between shy, diminutive "before" Charu in the story, and the bolder "after" Charu telling it. There was a lot of flashback to Charu's childhood as well, and while there wasn't anything really wrong with that, I wasn't very interested or invested in Charu yet, so it dragged.
There was also the matter of Moira aka Pin aka The Prince, who Charu obviously cared for deeply, but as a reader, it took a while for me to see The Prince's appeal or understand why Charu was so into her in the first place. Most of the things Pin said or did struck me as annoying and disrespectful. Of course, this was all through Charu's lens of propriety, but Charu was charmed by The Prince in spite of her rebellious nature, and I just wasn't. I found myself wanting to care about their relationship more than I actually did.
Anyway, here we are, approaching the end of Charu's first chunk of narration — and then a murder happens.
This is where things get good. I was promised a murder mystery and here it is, at last! Whose perspective are we shifting to? My expectations aren't high yet, so I go through the mildly interesting possibilities. One of the other teachers? One of the quirky residents of the town? One of Charu's family members, who feature so prominently in her flashbacks and reflections (but ultimately fail to capture my interest)?
To my amazement and delight, it's none of those inferior beings! It's Nandita, who has been established as the cleverest of the clever girls in Charu's tenth form English class. Nandita is basically the best. With her witty insights and shared appreciation of Shakespeare, Nandita's class is one of the highlights of Charu's school life, and easily one of the highlights of this book.
In Nandita's chapters, it's all about MYSTERY SOLVING TEEN GIRLS. In India. In the 70s. With copious Shakespeare references, multilingual wordplay, and an abundance of small rebellious acts under the establishment of the tenth form Rule Breakers Club. They work around the school's ban on fancy panties, feast on forbidden glucose biscuits after dark, get high on cough syrup (well, tonic water) and one fateful day, Nandita and her friend Ramona break the biggest of the medium-sized rules: they sneak out of the school at night, and consequently see something they shouldn't have.
Who was out on the plateau on the night of the murder? Who was the last one to see the victim at the witch's needle? Was it a crime of passion? Of hate? A love triangle? Definitely a love triangle, the girls believe, but which one, and who was in the middle? Do ghosts exist, and if not, what the heck was THAT? These are the questions that need to be asked. The Woggle (as the girls call local police chief Mr Wagle) is too busy framing the wrong cavern-occupying drug dealer to investigate these important details, and so it's up to the schoolgirl detectives to procure some hard evidence, fast.
The girls carry on being awesome for a good chunk of the book, through many twists and turns and manipulations that I won't reveal, and then we go back to Charu.
This time, Charu's back with a vengeance. She's confident. She handles tragedy with grace, embraces her own multifacetedness, and says yes to some drugs, but not all of them. There's some less-interesting family business to take care of — I mean, it does contribute to the story and Charu's development, and it's definitely necessary, but all in all I'm glad when the family situation fades into the background so we can go on with the mystery-solving.
Charu continues investigating the murder in a similar fashion to the girls (except that she's presumably allowed to wear any style of underwear she pleases while doing so.) She's so brave and wonderful at this stage of the book, although it's hard to explain how and why without giving away plot details.
Without revealing too much, here's something she says after a particularly harrowing situation:
Too confusing for him! This quote is so good on so many levels. Charu, my heroine!
Anyway, there's no point in vaguely trying to sum up the events from here on out, because there's not much I can say without spoiling the outcome and all the happenings that lead up to it!
Let it just be said that I didn't see the end coming at all, and the way it was revealed was fantastic and SO thematically relevant. I was downright gleeful while the conclusion fell into place.
I really, really loved reading this book. There were times, especially in the Nandita-centric middle section, when I just wanted to hug it to my chest because I felt so happy that these characters existed! I may have whisper-screamed "TEEN GIRL DETECTIVE SQUAD" into its pages an embarrassing number of times. I may have also peered outside my window for fear of ghosts. My heart leapt every time Macbeth was referenced. My blood boiled every time British superiority was invoked. It touched on a lot of things that were meaningful to me, and that made this book amazing to me. If you're planning to read it, I hope you find it amazing too!
Charulata "Charu" Apte (Or "The Apt" as the schoolgirls say) has ambitions of being a chic Bombay girl, but for now, will settle for a teaching post at Timmins if it's a step toward freedom. She has what the girls refer to as a vernacular accent, a burdensome family history, and a disfiguring blot on her face that no amount of holistic treatment can cure.
By day, she teaches Shakespeare and makes nice with the ladies on the staff, by all accounts the good Marathi girl her parents have raised her to be. By night, or rather by weekend, she finds herself drawn into the local scene of sex/drugs/rock'n'roll, opening up a vivid world of adventures and literature and self-discovery. Over the course of these weekend escapades she falls in love with a lady-teacher called The Prince, attracts the attention of the local man of mystery who turns out to be an easygoing bibliophile, and ultimately learns to love herself. There are times when she can barely even see the blot on her face.
At this point, about a third of the way through, I liked the book well enough — I liked seeing Charu expand her world and become braver inside and out of her classroom — but the book was hovering around a 3/5 for me. I think I felt a disconnect between shy, diminutive "before" Charu in the story, and the bolder "after" Charu telling it. There was a lot of flashback to Charu's childhood as well, and while there wasn't anything really wrong with that, I wasn't very interested or invested in Charu yet, so it dragged.
There was also the matter of Moira aka Pin aka The Prince, who Charu obviously cared for deeply, but as a reader, it took a while for me to see The Prince's appeal or understand why Charu was so into her in the first place. Most of the things Pin said or did struck me as annoying and disrespectful. Of course, this was all through Charu's lens of propriety, but Charu was charmed by The Prince in spite of her rebellious nature, and I just wasn't. I found myself wanting to care about their relationship more than I actually did.
Anyway, here we are, approaching the end of Charu's first chunk of narration — and then a murder happens.
This is where things get good. I was promised a murder mystery and here it is, at last! Whose perspective are we shifting to? My expectations aren't high yet, so I go through the mildly interesting possibilities. One of the other teachers? One of the quirky residents of the town? One of Charu's family members, who feature so prominently in her flashbacks and reflections (but ultimately fail to capture my interest)?
To my amazement and delight, it's none of those inferior beings! It's Nandita, who has been established as the cleverest of the clever girls in Charu's tenth form English class. Nandita is basically the best. With her witty insights and shared appreciation of Shakespeare, Nandita's class is one of the highlights of Charu's school life, and easily one of the highlights of this book.
In Nandita's chapters, it's all about MYSTERY SOLVING TEEN GIRLS. In India. In the 70s. With copious Shakespeare references, multilingual wordplay, and an abundance of small rebellious acts under the establishment of the tenth form Rule Breakers Club. They work around the school's ban on fancy panties, feast on forbidden glucose biscuits after dark, get high on cough syrup (well, tonic water) and one fateful day, Nandita and her friend Ramona break the biggest of the medium-sized rules: they sneak out of the school at night, and consequently see something they shouldn't have.
Who was out on the plateau on the night of the murder? Who was the last one to see the victim at the witch's needle? Was it a crime of passion? Of hate? A love triangle? Definitely a love triangle, the girls believe, but which one, and who was in the middle? Do ghosts exist, and if not, what the heck was THAT? These are the questions that need to be asked. The Woggle (as the girls call local police chief Mr Wagle) is too busy framing the wrong cavern-occupying drug dealer to investigate these important details, and so it's up to the schoolgirl detectives to procure some hard evidence, fast.
The girls carry on being awesome for a good chunk of the book, through many twists and turns and manipulations that I won't reveal, and then we go back to Charu.
This time, Charu's back with a vengeance. She's confident. She handles tragedy with grace, embraces her own multifacetedness, and says yes to some drugs, but not all of them. There's some less-interesting family business to take care of — I mean, it does contribute to the story and Charu's development, and it's definitely necessary, but all in all I'm glad when the family situation fades into the background so we can go on with the mystery-solving.
Charu continues investigating the murder in a similar fashion to the girls (except that she's presumably allowed to wear any style of underwear she pleases while doing so.) She's so brave and wonderful at this stage of the book, although it's hard to explain how and why without giving away plot details.
Without revealing too much, here's something she says after a particularly harrowing situation:
"It's the standard-issue Indian male syndrome. Mothers and sisters on a pedestal on the one hand, and loose women and prostitutes below the boot on the other. And me, a good Marathi girl like his sisters, consorting with all of you wastrels and worse. Too confusing for him."
Too confusing for him! This quote is so good on so many levels. Charu, my heroine!
Anyway, there's no point in vaguely trying to sum up the events from here on out, because there's not much I can say without spoiling the outcome and all the happenings that lead up to it!
Let it just be said that I didn't see the end coming at all, and the way it was revealed was fantastic and SO thematically relevant. I was downright gleeful while the conclusion fell into place.
I really, really loved reading this book. There were times, especially in the Nandita-centric middle section, when I just wanted to hug it to my chest because I felt so happy that these characters existed! I may have whisper-screamed "TEEN GIRL DETECTIVE SQUAD" into its pages an embarrassing number of times. I may have also peered outside my window for fear of ghosts. My heart leapt every time Macbeth was referenced. My blood boiled every time British superiority was invoked. It touched on a lot of things that were meaningful to me, and that made this book amazing to me. If you're planning to read it, I hope you find it amazing too!
March 9, 2020
........
What the...?
So, Nelly did it? Allllllllll that for an answer to a question that ranks 10th on my list of questions.
Here are the others
9. Why after Nandita asks Charu to write a story about her deformity - and after Charu acknowledges that Nandita is working to influence people away from using the word "cripple" in favour of the word "handicap" - does Charu *still* use the word "cripple" as an adjective within the very same paragraph outlining the book and Nandita's mission?
8. Why so many damned characters? Parents, aunts, uncles' wives, grandparents, cousins, drug dealers, former bosses, teachers, missionaries, shopkeepers, more teachers, students, cousins, hippies, more students, more hippies, a blind man with grudge-matches in the op ed section of a local news paper, police inspectors, one teenage male who is a would-be rapist, absent daughters in college, a doctor, amazing masala chai makers, ayahs, dobhis, and panawallas....and many of these characters have nicknames used interchangeably with their real names! Good god(s) - which reminds me: many gods
Why sooooo much clutter? And somehow they were *all* on table-land at the same time while someone died, and the death *still* turned into a mystery. Good grief!
7. So many story lines that went no where! Raswani's past being chief among them. The scream in the night that everyone heard and that wasn't civet cats. What was in Nelly's purse? And, Shobha and Pin flirting? Really?
6. Your lover/best friend tells you she's suicidal, then you go and find her at a cliff's edge after dreaming she needs help... But when you track her down and find her at the edge with her arch nemesis... you decide to walk away???? Huh?
Demerit marks for the author for lampshading this very issue in Charu's last conversation with Woggle. Brutal!
5. So Pin is a badass who breaks all the rules, and she was an adult when her parents died. At that time, she is (pointlessly) commended into the guardianship of a woman who didn't want her at her birth (and still doesn't)...and the two of them then live and work together with *zero* reason to do so beside a deathbed moment? Nelly hates Pin. Pin hates her parents. Deathbed promises trump all that? Really? A murderer values a promise over actual human life?
4. Why did Nelly hate Pin? Why did she actively seek to humiliate her? Because Pin unknowingly (up until the last day of her life) threatened Nelly's status as queen bee of a mountain school? Really? Then why not contrive to get rid of her long before contriving to murder her???
3. What did all those artsy, stoner people see in Charu? What was their motivation in befriending her? From her own account, when she arrives in Panchgani, she didn't talk much and wasn't attractive, or interesting - having lived a very sheltered life. She doesn't smoke or drink for the longest time or have any other thing in common with these people. Does that scream "oh we must know this woman!"? And from her own account, Charu's future involved a marriage to a widower, or some other undesirable man, but then she ends up (in 3 sentences!) recounting an entirely different outcome. Charu had all the makings of an unreliable narrator. And that could have been amazing. But she wasn't and it wasn't.
2. What was "the blot", exactly? A birthmark? A port wine stain? A conscience barometer? All of the above? The author gave it each one of these qualities. I have a birthmark. It doesn't tingle and burn with my emotional and moral turbulence. Charu's does.
1. And the biggest one.... Charu and friends play some game where they find words in common between english and "Indian" languages - the phrase "hey bug" means one thing in english and another thing in Marathi... So attention is paid to the fact that things said in "Indian" can mean something else in english. And then you take other matters and string them together and something interesting is possible.... Charu's aunts hint at Baba having had a baby with a foreign woman. Plus, the letter Pin's cousin writes to her disclosing the truth about her adoption says Shirley Nelson had a baby she named Charlotte .... Which sounds a LOT like, oh I dunno, CHARULATA in Marathi.
For the love of all the things holy, how did the author miss the opportunity in allllllll those bloody pages in which not a bloody thing happens to actually weave together a hum-dinger of a plot twist?!!?
Ffs! I had hope of this right up until the very frigging last page! "the mother, the daughter, and the lover".... I totally hoped Charu would find out SHE was the daughter, that Pin found out and threatened to expose Nelly's love child, the product of an illicit affair with a married Native man. For the love of all things holy, the real ending was an effing enormous disappointment! All the pieces were there. Every single one. Ayi's misery at loving another woman's baby conceived of her husband's philandering. Baba and Ayi taking Charu away as a child once her schoolmates started spreading gossip about her father's scandal(s). Baba taking Charu to the school on Charu's first day. Nelly pronouncing the "t" in Charu's name wrong (or, was it actually right?! Hint hint) Even her parents guiding her to the school. And Ayi's depression over losing the daughter she raised. All could have been in service of a mystery. But no. Fuck no. The murder was solved and then 100 more pages happened featuring acid trips, a haircut, stolen saris, three days of sex, a stalker, and a story about bellbottoms.
Ugh. I'm glad I'm done this book. It was infuriating! As a coming of age story in a foreign (to me) land, it was quaint. The writing was not terrible. As a whodunit it was a giant stinker of monumental proportions.
The net was wide open, as we say in Canada.
What the...?
So, Nelly did it? Allllllllll that for an answer to a question that ranks 10th on my list of questions.
Here are the others
9. Why after Nandita asks Charu to write a story about her deformity - and after Charu acknowledges that Nandita is working to influence people away from using the word "cripple" in favour of the word "handicap" - does Charu *still* use the word "cripple" as an adjective within the very same paragraph outlining the book and Nandita's mission?
8. Why so many damned characters? Parents, aunts, uncles' wives, grandparents, cousins, drug dealers, former bosses, teachers, missionaries, shopkeepers, more teachers, students, cousins, hippies, more students, more hippies, a blind man with grudge-matches in the op ed section of a local news paper, police inspectors, one teenage male who is a would-be rapist, absent daughters in college, a doctor, amazing masala chai makers, ayahs, dobhis, and panawallas....and many of these characters have nicknames used interchangeably with their real names! Good god(s) - which reminds me: many gods
Why sooooo much clutter? And somehow they were *all* on table-land at the same time while someone died, and the death *still* turned into a mystery. Good grief!
7. So many story lines that went no where! Raswani's past being chief among them. The scream in the night that everyone heard and that wasn't civet cats. What was in Nelly's purse? And, Shobha and Pin flirting? Really?
6. Your lover/best friend tells you she's suicidal, then you go and find her at a cliff's edge after dreaming she needs help... But when you track her down and find her at the edge with her arch nemesis... you decide to walk away???? Huh?
Demerit marks for the author for lampshading this very issue in Charu's last conversation with Woggle. Brutal!
5. So Pin is a badass who breaks all the rules, and she was an adult when her parents died. At that time, she is (pointlessly) commended into the guardianship of a woman who didn't want her at her birth (and still doesn't)...and the two of them then live and work together with *zero* reason to do so beside a deathbed moment? Nelly hates Pin. Pin hates her parents. Deathbed promises trump all that? Really? A murderer values a promise over actual human life?
4. Why did Nelly hate Pin? Why did she actively seek to humiliate her? Because Pin unknowingly (up until the last day of her life) threatened Nelly's status as queen bee of a mountain school? Really? Then why not contrive to get rid of her long before contriving to murder her???
3. What did all those artsy, stoner people see in Charu? What was their motivation in befriending her? From her own account, when she arrives in Panchgani, she didn't talk much and wasn't attractive, or interesting - having lived a very sheltered life. She doesn't smoke or drink for the longest time or have any other thing in common with these people. Does that scream "oh we must know this woman!"? And from her own account, Charu's future involved a marriage to a widower, or some other undesirable man, but then she ends up (in 3 sentences!) recounting an entirely different outcome. Charu had all the makings of an unreliable narrator. And that could have been amazing. But she wasn't and it wasn't.
2. What was "the blot", exactly? A birthmark? A port wine stain? A conscience barometer? All of the above? The author gave it each one of these qualities. I have a birthmark. It doesn't tingle and burn with my emotional and moral turbulence. Charu's does.
1. And the biggest one.... Charu and friends play some game where they find words in common between english and "Indian" languages - the phrase "hey bug" means one thing in english and another thing in Marathi... So attention is paid to the fact that things said in "Indian" can mean something else in english. And then you take other matters and string them together and something interesting is possible.... Charu's aunts hint at Baba having had a baby with a foreign woman. Plus, the letter Pin's cousin writes to her disclosing the truth about her adoption says Shirley Nelson had a baby she named Charlotte .... Which sounds a LOT like, oh I dunno, CHARULATA in Marathi.
For the love of all the things holy, how did the author miss the opportunity in allllllll those bloody pages in which not a bloody thing happens to actually weave together a hum-dinger of a plot twist?!!?
Ffs! I had hope of this right up until the very frigging last page! "the mother, the daughter, and the lover".... I totally hoped Charu would find out SHE was the daughter, that Pin found out and threatened to expose Nelly's love child, the product of an illicit affair with a married Native man. For the love of all things holy, the real ending was an effing enormous disappointment! All the pieces were there. Every single one. Ayi's misery at loving another woman's baby conceived of her husband's philandering. Baba and Ayi taking Charu away as a child once her schoolmates started spreading gossip about her father's scandal(s). Baba taking Charu to the school on Charu's first day. Nelly pronouncing the "t" in Charu's name wrong (or, was it actually right?! Hint hint) Even her parents guiding her to the school. And Ayi's depression over losing the daughter she raised. All could have been in service of a mystery. But no. Fuck no. The murder was solved and then 100 more pages happened featuring acid trips, a haircut, stolen saris, three days of sex, a stalker, and a story about bellbottoms.
Ugh. I'm glad I'm done this book. It was infuriating! As a coming of age story in a foreign (to me) land, it was quaint. The writing was not terrible. As a whodunit it was a giant stinker of monumental proportions.
The net was wide open, as we say in Canada.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 5, 2012
Miss Timmins’ School for Girls: A Novel by Nayana Currimbhoy is a little slice of England in the midst of India. We all know that India was once an English colony, at least in the minds of the British and many of us realize that a certain Anglophile strand runs through India culture. So some Indian parents still send their daughters and sons to fairly genuine or genuinely pseudo English boarding schools to get some polish and learn English. This particular school, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls, is just such a school in an area that is pounded by monsoons during a seemingly endless portion of the school year. The constant drumming on the metal roofs is enough to send the pubescent girls and the lonely female teachers into hormonally driven madness.
There is a lot of humor in this book, but it is very tongue-in-cheek. The excesses of a British girl’s school are described in some detail. “Wardrobe rules were very strict at Timmons’ School for Girls. Each girl’s trunk must contain eight blue-checked knickers, two red-checked knickers, two navy-blue sports knickers, and eight play knickers. The whole army of knickers had to be bloomers, held up with elastic at each leg, not more than six inches above the knee. At home, through every holiday, the tailor sat in our balcony for weeks, patiently threading elastic into the one hundred and twenty knicker legs of each of us three sisters.” One teacher, Miss Manson took it upon herself to inspect the bloomers, which tended to sag after a while, by snapping the elastic under the student’s hem and dealing out detentions to girls with “bad elastic”. Every girl had a rain coat in red, yellow, or blue and throughout the monsoon the girls travelled everywhere in their rain coats and in double crocodile-style lines. This is an image that is certainly designed to inspire humor. Even in India girls seemed to accept this regimen to some extent and only rebelled in some of the same ways girls probably rebelled in the same types of schools in England.
This is not just a “coming of age” story, (these seem very prevalent lately); it is also an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery. Yes there is a murder at the school. We have a heroine, Charulata Apte, who is young and attractive with beautiful long black hair, but who has a “blot” (red mark) on one cheek that is impossible to hide and becomes angry and oozes under certain circumstances which no one has been able to define. Ms. Apte is very young and very innocent and is the child of a father whose life (along with the fortunes of his family) contracted after “an unfortunate incident”. She is teaching the ninth-standard English, English literature (Macbeth in particular), and the British Raj in Indian history. She is also experiencing feelings she never thought to experience. Someone is flirting with her and it is waking her up and bringing lots of excitement into her life. The someone happens to be a fellow teacher, a lesbian named Moira Prince, but this kind of relationship is not so unusual in an all girl’s school where there are only females available and crushes often develop. It is the 70’s and there are American and British “hippies” roaming around India and there is lots of marijuana smoking and even some LSD dropping going on. Given the edgy lifestyle that Charu is living with her crush it is not surprising that she is enjoying the freedoms an alternative lifestyle offers.
Miss Prince, however, is the person who is murdered. She is murdered in a place where usually few people go. She appears to have been pushed off a cliff at the edge of a plateau where the moodier characters hang out. This particular night happens to be the last night of the monsoon. Suddenly the pounding rain stops and a full moon is visible. Who killed Miss Prince? The students decide to become detectives. Nandita, a lead student becomes the lead detective along with her crew, Ramona and Akhila. Another friend Shobha eventually also gets involved and challenges Nandita for the lead position. There is even a list of possible suspects, much as we see in an Agatha Christie novel, but there is no Ms. Marple or Hercule Poirot. Instead we have Merch, The Mystery Man. Apparently, the usually empty table-land was a virtual crossroads on the night “Pin” died. And so, this book becomes a mystery story and only incidentally about “coming of age” or about life at a British girl’s school in India.
The novel was not necessarily funny while I was reading it. However, the humor of the author’s descriptions and some of the girl’s rule-breaking behaviors were quite funny in retrospect. I always love books by India authors and I did enjoy this book very much although it seemed a bit long-winded. The characters are so idiosyncratic and the setting has that isolation that contains the best mysteries. There is even a twist at the end. If you’re after entertainment this could be a good choice. Although there is some speculation about the way our upbringing affects us later in life, it is not pursued with any great depth and it is not really the central point of the story. The secrets families keep until the children are old enough to deal with them are perhaps more germane to this story.
There is a lot of humor in this book, but it is very tongue-in-cheek. The excesses of a British girl’s school are described in some detail. “Wardrobe rules were very strict at Timmons’ School for Girls. Each girl’s trunk must contain eight blue-checked knickers, two red-checked knickers, two navy-blue sports knickers, and eight play knickers. The whole army of knickers had to be bloomers, held up with elastic at each leg, not more than six inches above the knee. At home, through every holiday, the tailor sat in our balcony for weeks, patiently threading elastic into the one hundred and twenty knicker legs of each of us three sisters.” One teacher, Miss Manson took it upon herself to inspect the bloomers, which tended to sag after a while, by snapping the elastic under the student’s hem and dealing out detentions to girls with “bad elastic”. Every girl had a rain coat in red, yellow, or blue and throughout the monsoon the girls travelled everywhere in their rain coats and in double crocodile-style lines. This is an image that is certainly designed to inspire humor. Even in India girls seemed to accept this regimen to some extent and only rebelled in some of the same ways girls probably rebelled in the same types of schools in England.
This is not just a “coming of age” story, (these seem very prevalent lately); it is also an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery. Yes there is a murder at the school. We have a heroine, Charulata Apte, who is young and attractive with beautiful long black hair, but who has a “blot” (red mark) on one cheek that is impossible to hide and becomes angry and oozes under certain circumstances which no one has been able to define. Ms. Apte is very young and very innocent and is the child of a father whose life (along with the fortunes of his family) contracted after “an unfortunate incident”. She is teaching the ninth-standard English, English literature (Macbeth in particular), and the British Raj in Indian history. She is also experiencing feelings she never thought to experience. Someone is flirting with her and it is waking her up and bringing lots of excitement into her life. The someone happens to be a fellow teacher, a lesbian named Moira Prince, but this kind of relationship is not so unusual in an all girl’s school where there are only females available and crushes often develop. It is the 70’s and there are American and British “hippies” roaming around India and there is lots of marijuana smoking and even some LSD dropping going on. Given the edgy lifestyle that Charu is living with her crush it is not surprising that she is enjoying the freedoms an alternative lifestyle offers.
Miss Prince, however, is the person who is murdered. She is murdered in a place where usually few people go. She appears to have been pushed off a cliff at the edge of a plateau where the moodier characters hang out. This particular night happens to be the last night of the monsoon. Suddenly the pounding rain stops and a full moon is visible. Who killed Miss Prince? The students decide to become detectives. Nandita, a lead student becomes the lead detective along with her crew, Ramona and Akhila. Another friend Shobha eventually also gets involved and challenges Nandita for the lead position. There is even a list of possible suspects, much as we see in an Agatha Christie novel, but there is no Ms. Marple or Hercule Poirot. Instead we have Merch, The Mystery Man. Apparently, the usually empty table-land was a virtual crossroads on the night “Pin” died. And so, this book becomes a mystery story and only incidentally about “coming of age” or about life at a British girl’s school in India.
The novel was not necessarily funny while I was reading it. However, the humor of the author’s descriptions and some of the girl’s rule-breaking behaviors were quite funny in retrospect. I always love books by India authors and I did enjoy this book very much although it seemed a bit long-winded. The characters are so idiosyncratic and the setting has that isolation that contains the best mysteries. There is even a twist at the end. If you’re after entertainment this could be a good choice. Although there is some speculation about the way our upbringing affects us later in life, it is not pursued with any great depth and it is not really the central point of the story. The secrets families keep until the children are old enough to deal with them are perhaps more germane to this story.
November 12, 2020
Rep: Indian cast and setting, bi mc, lesbian li
CWs: period typical homophobia, mentions of domestic abuse, attempted suicide of side character, attempted rape
CWs: period typical homophobia, mentions of domestic abuse, attempted suicide of side character, attempted rape
February 24, 2021
Creepy, Incredibly Amazing
This is a serious read, intense and a little literary. But, it has a cast of characters and a story that wouldn’t let me go.
This is a serious read, intense and a little literary. But, it has a cast of characters and a story that wouldn’t let me go.
June 22, 2020
Good worldbuilding, weak ending.
January 23, 2016
This was an important Year Beginner Book for me.
It was also very close to me. I haven't read nearly as many Indian author books as I should have, true, but this story felt aesthetically so Indian. At each point I was surprised by how relatable the considerably outlandish characters were, simply by their Indian-ness.
I was also struck by the familiarity of actually being in the story itself since I have been to Panchgani, the misty Table Land, the craziness of standing atop Kate's point, and Elephant's point and Needle's Point where the fateful events occur. The food and sarees were undeniably Maharashtrian, the family dynamics not too over the top.
Charu is one of those characters the author writes in, knowing you can travel with her to understand dozen other characters while she herself develops ever so perceptibly. I suppose I didn't understand the deal with The Prince and her alien qualities until the middle of the book, at which point sympathizing for her was unnecessary. Because
Merch The Mystery Man and the Stoners- now there's a band name! were largely underdeveloped I thought. I loved the description of the cold, rainy nights in Merch's room spent listening to rock music while drinking about, getting high.
This book should qualify as Magic Realism according to me, since each connecting word made this magical school so tangible and I've always wanted to go to a Boarding School in a Hill Station. This is the closest I'll ever get to it.
I got this book from a friend after searching all over, with her recommendation, from her library. I was not half way through, I decided to buy it online. And this is the first time I have done that.
Thank you Nayana Currimbhoy.
It was also very close to me. I haven't read nearly as many Indian author books as I should have, true, but this story felt aesthetically so Indian. At each point I was surprised by how relatable the considerably outlandish characters were, simply by their Indian-ness.
I was also struck by the familiarity of actually being in the story itself since I have been to Panchgani, the misty Table Land, the craziness of standing atop Kate's point, and Elephant's point and Needle's Point where the fateful events occur. The food and sarees were undeniably Maharashtrian, the family dynamics not too over the top.
Charu is one of those characters the author writes in, knowing you can travel with her to understand dozen other characters while she herself develops ever so perceptibly. I suppose I didn't understand the deal with The Prince and her alien qualities until the middle of the book, at which point sympathizing for her was unnecessary. Because
Merch The Mystery Man and the Stoners- now there's a band name! were largely underdeveloped I thought. I loved the description of the cold, rainy nights in Merch's room spent listening to rock music while drinking about, getting high.
This book should qualify as Magic Realism according to me, since each connecting word made this magical school so tangible and I've always wanted to go to a Boarding School in a Hill Station. This is the closest I'll ever get to it.
I got this book from a friend after searching all over, with her recommendation, from her library. I was not half way through, I decided to buy it online. And this is the first time I have done that.
Thank you Nayana Currimbhoy.
December 6, 2012
I got tired of this book about page 300 and had another 189 pages to go to finish. It is a mystery story. It is a social development story. It is a coming of age story. It is about a young woman with a birth mark that was born into a "fallen" family in India. It is about a British boarding school for girls in India in the l970's. It is about young girls trying to find love, trying to be accepted, trying to find their place. It probably is trying to be too many things. I also could not tell if it was spoofing things at times. The young girls trying to be detectives like Agatha Christie seemed kind of Mad Magazine to me. I guess there is a lot of it going around, but as far as I remember every major character was involved in a family with marital affairs. Could there have been another plot theme? Charu, Pin, Police inspector, Nelson, and I guess at an all girls school maybe that is the reality. What do I know about boarding schools? By the time I got to the end, I really did not care who had killed the girl.
November 9, 2016
Actually ★★★☆
This debut novel took me by surprise. Everything mentioned in the synopsis was there - murder mystery, coming-of-age, love story, hippies, 1970s boarding school clinging to colonial sensibilities - but it was the bits left out that really made me want to get stuck into this book and see what it was all about. The main character, Charu, was really well-drawn, but I felt I wanted to get to know some of the other important characters a little better. The ending was a triumph, with a few last minute red herrings pushed aside to lead to a "No Way!" moment for this reader.
This debut novel took me by surprise. Everything mentioned in the synopsis was there - murder mystery, coming-of-age, love story, hippies, 1970s boarding school clinging to colonial sensibilities - but it was the bits left out that really made me want to get stuck into this book and see what it was all about. The main character, Charu, was really well-drawn, but I felt I wanted to get to know some of the other important characters a little better. The ending was a triumph, with a few last minute red herrings pushed aside to lead to a "No Way!" moment for this reader.
Read
May 5, 2016I made it about 100 pages in and it's still meh. I don't want to do this for another 350+ pages.
August 28, 2024
This is a book that says “Yes, and” to the idea of genre. It’s a murder mystery… and a romance… and a boarding school story… and a family drama… and a coming-of-age story… and an examination of post-colonialism in India.
Whether that makes it over-stuffed or all-encompassing will depend on the reader and what you want out of the experience. Certainly it ties knots in any attempts to make predictions based on genre expectations. It affects the pacing, too: Depending on your interests, some sections may drag for you. That said, did I stay up past my bedtime with this book more than once? Sure did.
In 1974, Charu is 21 and is a new teacher at a British-style boarding school attended by wealthy Indian girls. (Like Charu, India is newly independent, but of course parental and colonial influences are still strong.) I think the book is best understood as her journey into her adult self, and how she navigates changing relationships within her family, and with students and adults at the school – but then there’s also a murder mystery shoved into the middle of the plot. It provides the book momentum and structure that it might otherwise have lacked, and it also provides an excuse for us to shift narrators for a section in the middle of the book. For about a hundred pages, we see things from the students’ point of view, get a few clues firsthand, and Charu drops to the background for a bit. (It’s hard work being the protagonist, after all.)
There’s a lot to like here. The writing is lovely, using the constant rain of monsoon season to great atmospheric effect. Both narrators are interesting people, smart, sympathetic, and flawed in interesting ways. And you know I always love a school story.
Personally, my least favorite element is that there are a lot of drugs in this story. It’s 1974, and recreational pharmaceuticals are almost part of the landscape rather than the plot. The narrative passes no judgement, and no one is made an example of over drug use, at least, but I found some of these scenes tedious because being high or drunk becomes an easy reason for characters to not notice or remember things that perhaps they should.
And you really want everyone to stay sharp, because remember… there’s a murder plot.
Whether that makes it over-stuffed or all-encompassing will depend on the reader and what you want out of the experience. Certainly it ties knots in any attempts to make predictions based on genre expectations. It affects the pacing, too: Depending on your interests, some sections may drag for you. That said, did I stay up past my bedtime with this book more than once? Sure did.
In 1974, Charu is 21 and is a new teacher at a British-style boarding school attended by wealthy Indian girls. (Like Charu, India is newly independent, but of course parental and colonial influences are still strong.) I think the book is best understood as her journey into her adult self, and how she navigates changing relationships within her family, and with students and adults at the school – but then there’s also a murder mystery shoved into the middle of the plot. It provides the book momentum and structure that it might otherwise have lacked, and it also provides an excuse for us to shift narrators for a section in the middle of the book. For about a hundred pages, we see things from the students’ point of view, get a few clues firsthand, and Charu drops to the background for a bit. (It’s hard work being the protagonist, after all.)
There’s a lot to like here. The writing is lovely, using the constant rain of monsoon season to great atmospheric effect. Both narrators are interesting people, smart, sympathetic, and flawed in interesting ways. And you know I always love a school story.
Personally, my least favorite element is that there are a lot of drugs in this story. It’s 1974, and recreational pharmaceuticals are almost part of the landscape rather than the plot. The narrative passes no judgement, and no one is made an example of over drug use, at least, but I found some of these scenes tedious because being high or drunk becomes an easy reason for characters to not notice or remember things that perhaps they should.
And you really want everyone to stay sharp, because remember… there’s a murder plot.
July 24, 2017
Long after the British left India, certain traditions remain - cricket, bureaucracy and sending your impressionable well-to-do youth to be educated at altitude to name just a few. With a family scandal to escape from, Charu takes a job at Miss Timmins' School for Girls in Panjgani (south of Mumbai, north of Pune) teaching Shakespeare to over-privileged Indian girls. The other teachers are a mix of British missionaries, Anglo-Indians and local staff plus the charismatic and mysterious Miss Prince.
Charu's coming of age seems to be an excuse for more than the average degree of experimentation and she's soon transformed from a shy girl with a disfiguring birthmark on her face to a bit of a wild woman embracing all that the sex and drugs culture of the 1970s has to offer.
When a mysterious death has the whole town questioning 'whodunnit', both Charu and a small group of pupils are determined to get to the bottom of the case.
I loved the sense of monsoon madness, humidity and rain and could clearly picture Panjgani in my mind (especially since I'm familiar with a similar town on the other side of the mountain ridge so I could picture this place very clearly). I liked that the location was a real place and not a fictional one, and that the setting was the richer for its reality. I found Charu's precipitous slide into depravity rather alarming and not entirely realistic and didn't particularly like the change of narrator one third of the way through and the change back again later (especially since the tone of the narration didn't seem to change significantly) but the book was compelling enough to keep me plodding through nearly 500 pages to eventually find out who the murderer was.
For a first novel it's impressive - perhaps a touch repetitive in places, and I could have done without the narrator swap - mostly for the richness of the setting and the fascinating characters.
Charu's coming of age seems to be an excuse for more than the average degree of experimentation and she's soon transformed from a shy girl with a disfiguring birthmark on her face to a bit of a wild woman embracing all that the sex and drugs culture of the 1970s has to offer.
When a mysterious death has the whole town questioning 'whodunnit', both Charu and a small group of pupils are determined to get to the bottom of the case.
I loved the sense of monsoon madness, humidity and rain and could clearly picture Panjgani in my mind (especially since I'm familiar with a similar town on the other side of the mountain ridge so I could picture this place very clearly). I liked that the location was a real place and not a fictional one, and that the setting was the richer for its reality. I found Charu's precipitous slide into depravity rather alarming and not entirely realistic and didn't particularly like the change of narrator one third of the way through and the change back again later (especially since the tone of the narration didn't seem to change significantly) but the book was compelling enough to keep me plodding through nearly 500 pages to eventually find out who the murderer was.
For a first novel it's impressive - perhaps a touch repetitive in places, and I could have done without the narrator swap - mostly for the richness of the setting and the fascinating characters.
July 11, 2024
I don’t really understand why the author started with Merch’s point-of-view. I did love the point-of-views of both Charulata and Nandita though. It just seemed random and didn’t add anything to the story to start with Merch’s.
It was cute how the group of 15 year olds came together to try and solve the murder of Moira Prince. Considering the time period, I’m surprised that the idea of their teachers being lesbians barely phased them at all.
This book was mostly slow and boring. I almost gave it up, but then I got to the first couple of twists and decided to keep going thinking that maybe it was getting better, but then it dulled out again. The twists, whenever they would hit, would get me invested and convince me to keep going, but things never kept up that high stakes feeling.
It was cute how the group of 15 year olds came together to try and solve the murder of Moira Prince. Considering the time period, I’m surprised that the idea of their teachers being lesbians barely phased them at all.
This book was mostly slow and boring. I almost gave it up, but then I got to the first couple of twists and decided to keep going thinking that maybe it was getting better, but then it dulled out again. The twists, whenever they would hit, would get me invested and convince me to keep going, but things never kept up that high stakes feeling.
March 22, 2012
This book was selected by my local library's book club as its April 2012 read. I read it early so I could return the book quickly; I'm hoping that more people will choose to join our group.
This is a very strange book. It's a mystery wrapped in a veil of social commentary of the 1970s in India. I'm sure it will often get shelved in a lesbian/bisexual category, but I think it's more about love and growing up during those times. I categorize it as historical fiction, although since I grew up in the 1970s, that makes me feel a bit old.
There are numerous references to The Bible and to famous authors and books throughout. I liked the literary references and as I haven't read many of the books listed here, I will likely add several of them to my to-read list. Other authors, such as Agatha Christie, James Hadley Chase, and Enid Blyton were referred to, but no specific books were mentioned.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Rosemary's Baby by Ira LevinGone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier
How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
The Hunting Of The Snark by Lewis Carroll
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
Overall, I liked the book, but it didn't have the pull that so many books do, making me want to read them straight through until the end. Often I felt like I was reading it to finish it, not so much for the love of the characters or the thrill of the story. Good, but not great.
interesting quote:
"I can say that feeling sexy was a current that ran through my body, bouncy and tart, and it was she who started it. Man or woman, it did not matter, I thought. Lovemaking is always with the eyes." (p. 388)
new word: autodidactic
This is a very strange book. It's a mystery wrapped in a veil of social commentary of the 1970s in India. I'm sure it will often get shelved in a lesbian/bisexual category, but I think it's more about love and growing up during those times. I categorize it as historical fiction, although since I grew up in the 1970s, that makes me feel a bit old.
There are numerous references to The Bible and to famous authors and books throughout. I liked the literary references and as I haven't read many of the books listed here, I will likely add several of them to my to-read list. Other authors, such as Agatha Christie, James Hadley Chase, and Enid Blyton were referred to, but no specific books were mentioned.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Rosemary's Baby by Ira LevinGone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier
How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
The Hunting Of The Snark by Lewis Carroll
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
Overall, I liked the book, but it didn't have the pull that so many books do, making me want to read them straight through until the end. Often I felt like I was reading it to finish it, not so much for the love of the characters or the thrill of the story. Good, but not great.
interesting quote:
"I can say that feeling sexy was a current that ran through my body, bouncy and tart, and it was she who started it. Man or woman, it did not matter, I thought. Lovemaking is always with the eyes." (p. 388)
new word: autodidactic
August 20, 2023
Some pacing struggles but overall absorbing with a strong setting
January 30, 2020
It was hard to get started... the first few chapters were kinda slow..draggy.
But then.. the unexpected happens... and then I just could not put it down!
Enjoyed it!!!
But then.. the unexpected happens... and then I just could not put it down!
Enjoyed it!!!
Read
July 9, 2011Miss Timmins' School for Girls is quite misleading. I was expecting an interesting coming-of-age story that just happens to take place in India. Instead, I found a complex novel of which a personal journey of discovery is only one small part of the overall plot. There is murder, love, intrigue, family secrets, and the ties that bind it all together. Combined with the always-fascinating backdrop of India, the result is an intriguing and seductive novel about the damage secrets can do to others and to oneself.
Charu Apte is not your typical heroine. She has big dreams but has been hampered by her birthmark, a prominent blot on her face. As a coping mechanism, she has always turned inward and stamped out any initiative in an effort to remain anonymous and invisible. She has always found it far easier to suffer in silence than to draw attention to herself. The reader gets a glimpse that things are changing for Charu with her initial position as a teacher at the British-run Miss Timmins' School For Girls. As a teacher, she can no longer hide in the shadows but rather is forced to take a stand in order to maintain control of her classroom. This is only one of many changes for Charu as she discovers love, her purpose, and her voice.
Love is a huge theme in Miss Timmins' School for Girls. Romantic love, platonic love, familial love, self-love - they drive the characters' actions and cause them to make choices that may seem surprising or unusual. Charu is the biggest recipient of these various forces as she is compelled to delineate between the various kinds of love, compartmentalize them and face the consequences of her actions, yet everyone is driven by this key factor. The main actions in the novel are a direct result of choosing one type of love over another and puts these forces into perspective for the reader.
One cannot discuss this novel without highlighting the prominent influence the setting plays in the novel. When it comes to directing the characters' actions, the setting becomes a character unto itself, as characters feel forced to act a certain way because of caste, societal influences, or even due to geography. Set in the 1970s, the prominence of drugs also plays a factor as it prevents Charu from immediate action but allows her to push aside key decisions for momentary distractions and peace. While the prevalence of drugs could have been overdone, quickly becoming cliched, Ms. Chirrumbhoy uses the drug scene to highlight the changing culture and growing awareness and deliberate ignorance of the restrictions of the caste system.
In Miss Timmins' School for Girls, Nayana Chirrumbhoy presents a fascinating study of culture in flux. British influence clashes with the caste system, which clashes with the emerging hippie/beatnik culture. At the same time, the cast of characters must maneuver their way through this evolving culture and changing social mores; Charu is just the main character to traverse this slippery trail. Ms. Chirrumbhoy wisely allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about certain plot points, thereby enhancing the reader's involvement and engagement in the story. Not to be read slowly, Miss Timmins' School for Girls rewards patient and careful readers with a complex snapshot in time of a young woman coming of age ad experiencing the conflicting pulls of the different types of love in a wildly evolving society
Thank you to NetGalley for my e-galley!
Charu Apte is not your typical heroine. She has big dreams but has been hampered by her birthmark, a prominent blot on her face. As a coping mechanism, she has always turned inward and stamped out any initiative in an effort to remain anonymous and invisible. She has always found it far easier to suffer in silence than to draw attention to herself. The reader gets a glimpse that things are changing for Charu with her initial position as a teacher at the British-run Miss Timmins' School For Girls. As a teacher, she can no longer hide in the shadows but rather is forced to take a stand in order to maintain control of her classroom. This is only one of many changes for Charu as she discovers love, her purpose, and her voice.
Love is a huge theme in Miss Timmins' School for Girls. Romantic love, platonic love, familial love, self-love - they drive the characters' actions and cause them to make choices that may seem surprising or unusual. Charu is the biggest recipient of these various forces as she is compelled to delineate between the various kinds of love, compartmentalize them and face the consequences of her actions, yet everyone is driven by this key factor. The main actions in the novel are a direct result of choosing one type of love over another and puts these forces into perspective for the reader.
One cannot discuss this novel without highlighting the prominent influence the setting plays in the novel. When it comes to directing the characters' actions, the setting becomes a character unto itself, as characters feel forced to act a certain way because of caste, societal influences, or even due to geography. Set in the 1970s, the prominence of drugs also plays a factor as it prevents Charu from immediate action but allows her to push aside key decisions for momentary distractions and peace. While the prevalence of drugs could have been overdone, quickly becoming cliched, Ms. Chirrumbhoy uses the drug scene to highlight the changing culture and growing awareness and deliberate ignorance of the restrictions of the caste system.
In Miss Timmins' School for Girls, Nayana Chirrumbhoy presents a fascinating study of culture in flux. British influence clashes with the caste system, which clashes with the emerging hippie/beatnik culture. At the same time, the cast of characters must maneuver their way through this evolving culture and changing social mores; Charu is just the main character to traverse this slippery trail. Ms. Chirrumbhoy wisely allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about certain plot points, thereby enhancing the reader's involvement and engagement in the story. Not to be read slowly, Miss Timmins' School for Girls rewards patient and careful readers with a complex snapshot in time of a young woman coming of age ad experiencing the conflicting pulls of the different types of love in a wildly evolving society
Thank you to NetGalley for my e-galley!
August 11, 2014
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it was well-written and developed a mystery I was sure I'd solved but hadn't. It was great to read about a woman of color (and written by a woman of color) who was also bisexual ("bisexual" was never used, but Charu fully accepts her attraction to both - as she phrases it - sexes). It was an intriguing look at a community I'd never considered before: an English-led school in India in the 1970's. Without explicitly writing about colonialism, it certainly provides some insight into post-colonialism in India and some of the repercussions on a smaller (i.e. not as India the nation-state) level. It was filled with characters who were fleshed out.
On the other hand, long as it was, it left me wanting. There never seems to be true motivation for most of anyone's actions. For example, why exactly does the Hindu teacher go crazy and leave? Why did she push Nandita over the edge when she wasn't the original murderer? And the book ties up its mystery 12 years later but in the last 5 pages or so of the book. It gives a cold resolution that doesn't leave me believing it. Not that I don't believe the murderer is who Charu deems it is at the end, but the motivation she sees seems so random and convoluted. If her thoughts are correct, all I can think then is that the killer was also crazy (torn between the sinner and the saint as Charu suggests) and then that's an awful lot of insanity going around that town. I suppose, small town secrets? And it never solves the mystery of the scream; those in the school heard it, but Charu did not on the mountain?
Anyway, it is a respectable novel with a fascinating protagonist and setting. I just think for me, it's not my kind of book, ultimately.
On the other hand, long as it was, it left me wanting. There never seems to be true motivation for most of anyone's actions. For example, why exactly does the Hindu teacher go crazy and leave? Why did she push Nandita over the edge when she wasn't the original murderer? And the book ties up its mystery 12 years later but in the last 5 pages or so of the book. It gives a cold resolution that doesn't leave me believing it. Not that I don't believe the murderer is who Charu deems it is at the end, but the motivation she sees seems so random and convoluted. If her thoughts are correct, all I can think then is that the killer was also crazy (torn between the sinner and the saint as Charu suggests) and then that's an awful lot of insanity going around that town. I suppose, small town secrets? And it never solves the mystery of the scream; those in the school heard it, but Charu did not on the mountain?
Anyway, it is a respectable novel with a fascinating protagonist and setting. I just think for me, it's not my kind of book, ultimately.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 13, 2012
A worthwhile read! This book has great depth - much more than I expected. I picked it up while browsing bookstore shelves and it was promoted as a mystery novel and also as a coming of age story. It is both, but to use either description limits this quiet gem. The mystery itself is predictable, and I don't think it is meant to be anything more than a sturdy structure from which to drape the rest of the novel. The narrative is shifting and moody and wonderfully descriptive. The characters - even the most minor - are richly developed. The reader definitely gains a sense of time and place that is quietly extraordinary. I have to admit with this novel, that I was fully engrossed in the first chapters but quickly pulled back in the middle. I even finished several other novels before picking this one up again. It wasn't the author's fault - I just wasn't in the right place for it. I think it does illustrate the sort of sweeping plot and mood changes that Currimbhoy deftly takes her reader through. I soon picked up where I left off and was unable to put it down. I loved where this story ends and I'm sorry to let the characters go. Pick this one up when you have some time to devote to it rather than reading a few lines here and there between other tasks. "Miss Timmins' School for Girls" is worth the effort.
August 6, 2015
I cannot praise this book highly enough.
I randomly selected it from the shelf at the library. I'll admit it, the cover grabbed my attention, I loved the blurb, and from the moment I read the first page, I was hooked.
Absolutely refreshing to read something not set in America or England. Clearly I need to vary my reading a lot more, as I hadn't realised I'd fallen into such patterns.
The main character has faults, she isn't perfect, both externally and internally. She copes with a disfigurement, which is a defining feature of her. But it doesn't rule her life. Her life does not follow the pathway her family, her caste, her colleagues expect, and I think that is the greatest surprise of all.
If you don't like reading about drug use, or lesbianism, then this book isn't for you.
If you love mystery, complex characters, and chapters written from different viewpoints, and beautiful prose, then this book is for you.
Every character, minor or otherwise, comes to life between these pages. I wanted to finish it, but I didn't want it to end.
I've never been to boarding school, but it had shades of Enid Blyton tangled through some of the scenes. And as an avid childhood fan of the Famous Five, and all the other series written by Enid Blyton, I loved it even more for that aspect.
I loved it. That is all.
I randomly selected it from the shelf at the library. I'll admit it, the cover grabbed my attention, I loved the blurb, and from the moment I read the first page, I was hooked.
Absolutely refreshing to read something not set in America or England. Clearly I need to vary my reading a lot more, as I hadn't realised I'd fallen into such patterns.
The main character has faults, she isn't perfect, both externally and internally. She copes with a disfigurement, which is a defining feature of her. But it doesn't rule her life. Her life does not follow the pathway her family, her caste, her colleagues expect, and I think that is the greatest surprise of all.
If you don't like reading about drug use, or lesbianism, then this book isn't for you.
If you love mystery, complex characters, and chapters written from different viewpoints, and beautiful prose, then this book is for you.
Every character, minor or otherwise, comes to life between these pages. I wanted to finish it, but I didn't want it to end.
I've never been to boarding school, but it had shades of Enid Blyton tangled through some of the scenes. And as an avid childhood fan of the Famous Five, and all the other series written by Enid Blyton, I loved it even more for that aspect.
I loved it. That is all.
May 2, 2015
This is one of the rare novels when I reread the prologue multiple of times. I am not sure what my intentions were, probably to find some substance or trying to have patience to read through the loopholes. After debating on giving this book a two or three,I went with a three. The plot described was about a murder that took place, a woman teaching a class is connected too it and the story talks about the repercussions. Sadly that is the only thing that I can say about it, it was not anything worth commenting further on. I will say that the writing style is beautiful, that contributed to the overall rating. However it had too many unanswered questions, random characters that came out of nowhere and I started to not care towards the end.
If there is one main thing that I loved was it was very intriguing. Despite my fickle feelings towards it, I would recommend this book to anyone. Maybe I was skimmed over parts that I should have remembered or I just lost patience cause nothing was happening in the initial pages? Whatever the case may be, I want to see what others think of it then I may reread it in the future.
There you have it, I can't say it was good cause I barely understood it. I will say that the plot is luring, perhaps someone else found more substance than I did.
If there is one main thing that I loved was it was very intriguing. Despite my fickle feelings towards it, I would recommend this book to anyone. Maybe I was skimmed over parts that I should have remembered or I just lost patience cause nothing was happening in the initial pages? Whatever the case may be, I want to see what others think of it then I may reread it in the future.
There you have it, I can't say it was good cause I barely understood it. I will say that the plot is luring, perhaps someone else found more substance than I did.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 269 reviews