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Bougainvillea House
Clean covers, smudges on dust jacket from stickers, no internal markings or highlights, fast delivery!
- GenresFiction
352 pages, Hardcover
First published August 30, 2006
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128 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 15, 2016
Don't you just love it when a mere random pick turns out to be complete wonder that you can't believe what just happened. This is one such work for me! A total accidental read. Picked up by a friend in an old book shop and was turned down by her as "little depressing". With other three books going on at a very slower pace, I picked this up to cure the slump.
The story based on Folie a deux a famous psychiatric syndrome talks about an old woman from Bandra suffering from motor neuron disease and spending her final days in an old family house at Goa as suggested by her Doc and her daughter. Having spent around nine months in there with gradual decaying of her physical and mental health, she was asked to open up her mind to a deaf listener. There she was, revealing her haunting memories of murders and troubled past life. Her delusions lead everyone around her to believe that she has some strange connections with the murders. In fact all except her doctor believe that she is the murderer. The doctor refuses to believe her stories and determines to find out the truth behind the mysteries.
The plot was compelling. The beginning was little boring with her sickness and her repeated narrations about mundane things, the plot thickens with murder after murder. Leaving few hints here and there, it became a quick page turner. The author being a surgeon herself has detailed the medications to the core and constructed a great story. The story was told in so many forms like tapes, diary entries, notes and narration of a third person as well and she has handled all of them perfectly well.
I would highly recommend it to all psychological thriller freaks who crave for unusual plots.
The story based on Folie a deux a famous psychiatric syndrome talks about an old woman from Bandra suffering from motor neuron disease and spending her final days in an old family house at Goa as suggested by her Doc and her daughter. Having spent around nine months in there with gradual decaying of her physical and mental health, she was asked to open up her mind to a deaf listener. There she was, revealing her haunting memories of murders and troubled past life. Her delusions lead everyone around her to believe that she has some strange connections with the murders. In fact all except her doctor believe that she is the murderer. The doctor refuses to believe her stories and determines to find out the truth behind the mysteries.
The plot was compelling. The beginning was little boring with her sickness and her repeated narrations about mundane things, the plot thickens with murder after murder. Leaving few hints here and there, it became a quick page turner. The author being a surgeon herself has detailed the medications to the core and constructed a great story. The story was told in so many forms like tapes, diary entries, notes and narration of a third person as well and she has handled all of them perfectly well.
I would highly recommend it to all psychological thriller freaks who crave for unusual plots.
March 22, 2018
This is a book, that I wish I hadn't read.
Don't get me wrong. Please. It's one of the finest, most articulate, and thoughtful psychological thrillers that I have ever read.
And it's also the darkest.
Beyond the brilliantly unreliable narrative presented in a strange-yet-expected non-linear format, this is a story of damnation.
No. There's nothing religious or spiritual about it. But this novel is about those dark and burning places within human heart that keeps on burning. One may think of understanding them. One, especially someone naive enough to be a Doctor or a priest may even go to the extent of denying them.
But truth has its own light. It doesn't get deceived so easily by those fires burning within. It doesn't get sidetracked by the ravages unleashed by those fires.
It shows us the complete picture.
How something happens.
How the memory of that thing spawns a thousand thoughts, hurts, and dark deeds.
How those dark deeds engulf everything.
How a sleepy house becomes the dark hollow that eats everything: relationship, trust, love,...
Even life!
This is one of the best, and one of the darkest works I have read.
I am not returning to this book. But please don't let that thought stop you from picking this book.
Recommended. Yes, I repeat, recommended.
Don't get me wrong. Please. It's one of the finest, most articulate, and thoughtful psychological thrillers that I have ever read.
And it's also the darkest.
Beyond the brilliantly unreliable narrative presented in a strange-yet-expected non-linear format, this is a story of damnation.
No. There's nothing religious or spiritual about it. But this novel is about those dark and burning places within human heart that keeps on burning. One may think of understanding them. One, especially someone naive enough to be a Doctor or a priest may even go to the extent of denying them.
But truth has its own light. It doesn't get deceived so easily by those fires burning within. It doesn't get sidetracked by the ravages unleashed by those fires.
It shows us the complete picture.
How something happens.
How the memory of that thing spawns a thousand thoughts, hurts, and dark deeds.
How those dark deeds engulf everything.
How a sleepy house becomes the dark hollow that eats everything: relationship, trust, love,...
Even life!
This is one of the best, and one of the darkest works I have read.
I am not returning to this book. But please don't let that thought stop you from picking this book.
Recommended. Yes, I repeat, recommended.
November 18, 2014
How often does it happen that you enter the largest bookstore in town and pick up a book based on mere curiosity without any background check of the writer or without leafing through it's reviews? Not a very common trait of mine when it comes to a book. I pick this abandoned book lying amongst a crowd of popular reads purely because of it's stimulating title and thought provoking blurb. Ambivalent i was but i must add the book turned up to be satisfactory.
' It rained the night they brought me to Bougainvillea House '
An absorbing start, gentle enough, insinuating the intentions as it meanders through the magnetic beauties of Goa. A twisted story of disturbed characters and complex web of relationships primarily narrated by Clarice Aranxa,a pernickety and loathsome woman suffering from Motor Neuron Disease. A disease which will soon take her life and so in quest of peace at the last hours of her life she is shipped from Mumbai to Bougainvillea House by her daughter Marion, but peace is not her fate. The house is reminiscent of a violent past which will relentlessly mirror itself in a series of unexplained and bizarre deaths.
The story starts with a bang only to become protracted in the middle which is a contrast to the jolt at the end. You are suddenly hit with a question! How did i miss the obvious? Answer:'The obvious is always least understood'!!
Bougainvillea House, with all the compulsive plot turns and twists is a gripping tale of the disturbed mind.However,inspite of the effectiveness there are also some disproportions in the story, for instance, the long and repetitive pattern of narration in the middle and an extremely sluggish build up. I almost gave up on it as i struggled to keep myself connected.Therefore, I rate it at 3 or 3.5 stars.
' It rained the night they brought me to Bougainvillea House '
An absorbing start, gentle enough, insinuating the intentions as it meanders through the magnetic beauties of Goa. A twisted story of disturbed characters and complex web of relationships primarily narrated by Clarice Aranxa,a pernickety and loathsome woman suffering from Motor Neuron Disease. A disease which will soon take her life and so in quest of peace at the last hours of her life she is shipped from Mumbai to Bougainvillea House by her daughter Marion, but peace is not her fate. The house is reminiscent of a violent past which will relentlessly mirror itself in a series of unexplained and bizarre deaths.
The story starts with a bang only to become protracted in the middle which is a contrast to the jolt at the end. You are suddenly hit with a question! How did i miss the obvious? Answer:'The obvious is always least understood'!!
Bougainvillea House, with all the compulsive plot turns and twists is a gripping tale of the disturbed mind.However,inspite of the effectiveness there are also some disproportions in the story, for instance, the long and repetitive pattern of narration in the middle and an extremely sluggish build up. I almost gave up on it as i struggled to keep myself connected.Therefore, I rate it at 3 or 3.5 stars.
February 21, 2011
Frightening with a slow build.
Clarice as the manipulator is chillingly cold. However, where her power over these people comes from may have been lost in translation.
However, as a psychological thriller, the author draws a novel which pulls you in, captures the languid Goa and makes you plow on to the end.
Clarice as the manipulator is chillingly cold. However, where her power over these people comes from may have been lost in translation.
However, as a psychological thriller, the author draws a novel which pulls you in, captures the languid Goa and makes you plow on to the end.
July 30, 2021
3.5. This was an impulse buy during a sale a few years back. The recent rainy weather put me in the mood for it. The slightly ornate prose takes a while to get into, but I grew to like it. My only complaint is the lack of space devoted to the p.o.v. of what turns out to be a central character, and the slightly hasty wrapping up after the big reveal. But overall, a solid read.
July 15, 2012
Bougainvillea House can claim a place among the classics on the sheer strength of its exploration of a tormented mindscape. My review at http://uspandey.com/2012/07/13/bougai...
June 16, 2024
Great book.
I just picked it randomly and it came out surprisingly good.
I just picked it randomly and it came out surprisingly good.
June 19, 2018
The book has a very intriguing start where we start thinking about Clarice's life. But, later on she herself discloses the murders in the first half of the book which I think opens the whole mystery very early for the readers. Then, later she is shown trying to hide those murders by narrating a different story to all the other characters. These stories and also the reality of murder is just repeated again and again in the whole book by the view point of all the characters which made me lose interest.
May 24, 2018
Delve into this book if you are a fan of Gone Girl. A perfect psych thriller with the most unreliable narrator.
Don't think I have ever hated another main character as much as I hate Clarice and I mean that as a good thing.
This was after years that I have stayed awake till 2AM to finish a book. I can't tell the story without giving away anything, so I wouldn't.
Don't think I have ever hated another main character as much as I hate Clarice and I mean that as a good thing.
This was after years that I have stayed awake till 2AM to finish a book. I can't tell the story without giving away anything, so I wouldn't.
May 14, 2019
I struggled through this because hard copy but the ending was satisfying and well done. The author could work on her pacing and some of her prose was repetitive but overall it suited the tone of the book and fleshed out the characters too.
July 14, 2017
Compelling read.
May 22, 2022
This book really torments your mind, brilliant!
February 17, 2008
the story of an invalid woman, very prudish or so it seems, and the many deaths that happen around her.
how she is linked to them
her daughter
how she is linked to them
her daughter
August 8, 2012
Superb writing, excellent plot and a very strong protagonist...definitely recommend this book.
November 27, 2012
A climax you never would have guessed :)
March 18, 2015
Chilling to the core. An unexpectedly good read.
Want to read
January 25, 2019Synopsis: Clarice Aranxa has come to Bougainvillea House in Goa to die. But long-forgotten memories are revived, violent memories.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews