the fact is that the two central figures of the book – the teenager sai as she lives with her grandfather and his cook in kalimpong falling in love with a young tutor who ends up as part of a liberation army; and biju – the son of the cook who having found his way to new york works as illegal labor in the back kitchens of many shady restaurants; are so empty that you end up inhabiting them. somehow through them we enter a narrative about the hunt for ones identity in a world where every single version of it is uncertain. the language sometimes did seem to me to be forced and clunky- but rarely. more often becasue of my american experience, i was taken in by the acuteness by which she was able to look at the longing for acceptance and family that plagues those far away from home; and the struggle to be free for those trapped in patterns that repeat endlessly . to break away and yet belong. or belong by breaking away.
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