Reviews with content warning for Islamophobia - Honor

The author writes her characters well and displays her knowledge of India politics, culture, history and society extremely well as well as the virtues and vices of the modern country. I loved the poor characters and how they were written the protagonists and antagonists all felt like real people no matter how virtuous or vile.

The weakest part of the novel is ironically the subplot that’s used to tie the ending together

the romantic subplot clearly meant to invert Hindu Mina and her murdered Muslim husband with the kinda secular former Muslim journalist and Hindu IT guy raising a Muslim ish girl together with the help of a religious minority friend, is hit on the head so many times it was kinda disappointing and predictable the author would find a way to pretend a woman risking giving up her job to marry a rich man to raise a child was somehow not sexist because she’s clearly meant to serve a metaphor diaspora Indians especially those who fled horrific bigoted violence in India being able to come home and make a new India with the hood Indians who never left. Which while an ideal ending, the happy ending of it all suddenly was so unpolished and rushed compared to the rest of the novel especially when ironically a lot of the language was the same sexist language used to degrade women who don’t want a partner or children even if it’s meant to be about this woman who’s made an island of herself and pledged explicitly to a dying woman to raise the child. The expectations of the land lady was sexist, the idea of giving s child to other more fit and wanting people to raise is heartless is sexist lol. Like yes the character reeked if loneliness and I think she would be happy coparenting the girl and they live in urban and wealthy part that’s clearly meant to be a shield —though the book never discusses the bad ethics of diamond merchant? Which was definitely bc it’s the author using the ending for escapism of the current reality of India but it seem like such a plot hole in an otherwise excellent book and snagged for me but maybe that’s bc I’ve seen the mines people mined crawling in Mexico and read about the illness and danger in coal country US.
I don’t dislike the ending altogether but it was clearly rushed and is such a departure from the quality of the rest of the novel. Especially because the couple clinging to each other after nearly escaping assault of their own persons and the murder of an elderly woman and child make sense and I think could kick start a romance but the sex was too much and felt so insensitive and unrealistic and contrived/cliche. Like they both just saw a woman beaten death and burned and now they’re fucking the same night? :/ crass maybe because I have nothing against a longer book, but I think she should have made book 4 of the book much longer to reach the desired ending better, better pacing and not being afraid to make the relationship tentative and hopeful but more ambiguous. Especially since the use of the promise to a dying woman was used to justify her leaving her country when the actual wish was for her daughter to go to America. Like I understand the analogy being made but it makes it so obvious the parts not burdensome for a woman and asking more of her then the man are waved away as failing a promise but not the parts that the book is clearly self conscious might be sexist (bc how it was argued was loll)

But for all that it was good even if I thought the book was way to harsh on civil rights lawyers especially compared to journalists even if they both do good work.

But also I thought it was so weird

the father never even finding out she was in India never came out or her brother when especially the dad felt really built up or even looking the other sister being abused who did so much to actually risk her life and quality of life to believe in a better India that feels almost abandoned by the rich Indian and Indian Americans in this book? Like even they can’t do anything they didn’t even look for her when she looked for her sister after the attack!

Content Warnings

stellahadz's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

I only wish this book had been longer. As sad and brutally heart-wrenching as it was to read, I loved every minute I spent with this story. Everything about it was so powerful: the imagery, the premise of the story, the characters and their experiences, and the emotions that I felt while reading. My heart broke for Meena, Smita, and all of the other characters who experienced horrific violence and hatred, and it was all the more heartbreaking to understand that this has happened, and continues to happen, to real people. I've seen some criticism of the ending in other reviews, and I can see why some people found it overly cliché, and why some people were generally critical of the

romance

aspect, but I was just glad that *someone* got a happy ending. I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it, but only if you're prepared to feel every emotion from curiosity to disappointment, from anger to hope.

Content Warnings

aespaldon24's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I was intrigued by the premise of the book and liked learning about this aspect of Indian culture. I particularly liked the chapters from Meena’s perspective. However, I found Smita and Mohan to both be irritating at times, particularly Smita.

And while I guessed from a mile away that it was going in that direction, I could have done without the romance subplot as I didn’t feel they had much chemistry to begin with and wasn’t invested in their relationship.

Despite that, it was still an interesting exploration of Indian culture, privilege and toxic masculinity.

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