andrew61's review
4.0
It is difficult to describe the experience of reading this book which in one breath exposes the worst of humanity whilst on the other the author leaves a very small window of hope in the individual. The book in its themes deals with kidnapping and trafficking of young girls for prostitution and the narrator of the story is Madhu ,a Hijra ( eunuch) , who from adolescence has found her way into a Mumbai brothel but is called upon to tame the parcels as they arrive terrified in their new Mumbai 'home' .
The book is terrifying and at times the depiction of brutality to children was difficult to cope with but as it is a story based on reality it felt necessary to complete. Madhu is however a wonderfully drawn character as are the stories of those around her and but for the horror I was completely absorbed in her tale.
A brave book and one that I am glad I read although it left me sad at the end about the inhumanity exposed. The small chink of light ultimately did not resolve the ultimate despair and with a word of caution that the themes will may not be ones that every reader will want to face.
The book is terrifying and at times the depiction of brutality to children was difficult to cope with but as it is a story based on reality it felt necessary to complete. Madhu is however a wonderfully drawn character as are the stories of those around her and but for the horror I was completely absorbed in her tale.
A brave book and one that I am glad I read although it left me sad at the end about the inhumanity exposed. The small chink of light ultimately did not resolve the ultimate despair and with a word of caution that the themes will may not be ones that every reader will want to face.
lilycatherinex's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lilycatherinex's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
scribepub's review against another edition
The material can be desolating, but Irani generates plenty of black comic detail, evoking the vividness and moral ambiguity of the best Indian noir.’
Cameron Woodhead, The Saturday Age, Pick of the Week
The Parcel is a magnificent novel, with powerfully imagined characters who yanked me into their lives from the first page and would not let go of me until the last. It is bold, bawdy, tender, funny, sorrowful, all that life is made up of, and when I did reach the end I felt abandoned.
Anita Rau Badami, Author of The Hero’s Walk
Immersive and devastating, The Parcel is a searing tale of personal transformation amid toxic patriarchy. Madhu is at once pathetic and honourable, despicable and mighty — and imbued with such complexity, Irani brings dignity to all the transgender sex-workers of India.
Rajith Savandasa, Author of Ruins
Harrowing, enraging, unexpectedly humorous, and also profoundly sad, The Parcel is a haunting work of fiction that illuminates the ways in which history, both political and personal, pervades the present day.
Lauren B. David, Trevor Ferguson, and Pasha Malla (2016 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury)
As engrossing as any thriller, Anosh Irani’s fourth novel offers readers so much more … The Parcel captivates with its vividly rendered characters and commands the reader’s attention by way of unnerving — and at times profoundly disturbing — portraiture of an abject group at the bottom of an already denigrated community at the heart of India’s booming financial hub, Mumbai … Irani’s compassion for these discarded souls, and the assertion of their essential dignity, renders them simultaneously touching and distressing.
Quill & Quire Starred Review
Part of the way this excellent book heals such a sprawling, horrifying reality is with beauty and religious depth.
The Globe and Mail
Deeply etched in man’s inhumanity to man and his capacity for both depravity and redemption.
Courier Mail
Irani’s portrait of Madhu and her community is tender and heroic, comic and tragic, dignified and destitute all at once.
The Skinny
The Parcel is such a fantastically moving novel … one of the most heartbreaking and fascinating novels I’ve read all year.
Lonesome Reader(blog)
Madhu is an ambiguous figure in many ways, and Irani delves deeply into her sad past among a world of outcasts. Pulling its readers’ sympathies in conflicting directions, The Parcel is a challenging novel, sharp and uncompromisingly written.
Sunday Herald
Cameron Woodhead, The Saturday Age, Pick of the Week
The Parcel is a magnificent novel, with powerfully imagined characters who yanked me into their lives from the first page and would not let go of me until the last. It is bold, bawdy, tender, funny, sorrowful, all that life is made up of, and when I did reach the end I felt abandoned.
Anita Rau Badami, Author of The Hero’s Walk
Immersive and devastating, The Parcel is a searing tale of personal transformation amid toxic patriarchy. Madhu is at once pathetic and honourable, despicable and mighty — and imbued with such complexity, Irani brings dignity to all the transgender sex-workers of India.
Rajith Savandasa, Author of Ruins
Harrowing, enraging, unexpectedly humorous, and also profoundly sad, The Parcel is a haunting work of fiction that illuminates the ways in which history, both political and personal, pervades the present day.
Lauren B. David, Trevor Ferguson, and Pasha Malla (2016 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury)
As engrossing as any thriller, Anosh Irani’s fourth novel offers readers so much more … The Parcel captivates with its vividly rendered characters and commands the reader’s attention by way of unnerving — and at times profoundly disturbing — portraiture of an abject group at the bottom of an already denigrated community at the heart of India’s booming financial hub, Mumbai … Irani’s compassion for these discarded souls, and the assertion of their essential dignity, renders them simultaneously touching and distressing.
Quill & Quire Starred Review
Part of the way this excellent book heals such a sprawling, horrifying reality is with beauty and religious depth.
The Globe and Mail
Deeply etched in man’s inhumanity to man and his capacity for both depravity and redemption.
Courier Mail
Irani’s portrait of Madhu and her community is tender and heroic, comic and tragic, dignified and destitute all at once.
The Skinny
The Parcel is such a fantastically moving novel … one of the most heartbreaking and fascinating novels I’ve read all year.
Lonesome Reader(blog)
Madhu is an ambiguous figure in many ways, and Irani delves deeply into her sad past among a world of outcasts. Pulling its readers’ sympathies in conflicting directions, The Parcel is a challenging novel, sharp and uncompromisingly written.
Sunday Herald
kanjichris's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Slavery, Torture, Child abuse, Confinement, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Body shaming, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Trafficking, and Transphobia
Moderate: Outing, Death, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Violence
shaythereader's review against another edition
5.0
Madhu is a forty year old transgender sex worker, who lives in Kamathipura, the red light district in Bombay, India, an area full of poor people, prostitutes, females rejected for being AIDS positive, and young girls sold by their families into sex slavery.
Rejected by his own family for being too effeminate, Madhu seeks acceptance in the hijra community, India's third sex, where Gurumai, a hijra guru, takes him as one of her disciplines and provides him with the love his family had denied him.
" There is a term for me in almost every Indian language. I am reviled and revered, deemed to have been blessed and cursed, with sacred powers. Parents think of me as a kidnapper, shopkeepers as a lucky charm, and married couples as a fertility expert. To passengers in taxis, I am but a nuisance. I am shooed away like a crow. Everyone has their version of what I am. Or what they want me to be."
With beautiful language and strong characters, the author tells stories of different people who live in kamathipura, stories full of rejection, love, and the search for acceptance in a world of prostitution, sex slavery, and child trafficking.
Rejected by his own family for being too effeminate, Madhu seeks acceptance in the hijra community, India's third sex, where Gurumai, a hijra guru, takes him as one of her disciplines and provides him with the love his family had denied him.
" There is a term for me in almost every Indian language. I am reviled and revered, deemed to have been blessed and cursed, with sacred powers. Parents think of me as a kidnapper, shopkeepers as a lucky charm, and married couples as a fertility expert. To passengers in taxis, I am but a nuisance. I am shooed away like a crow. Everyone has their version of what I am. Or what they want me to be."
With beautiful language and strong characters, the author tells stories of different people who live in kamathipura, stories full of rejection, love, and the search for acceptance in a world of prostitution, sex slavery, and child trafficking.
ashley__reads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Reading this book nearly traumatized me, in the best way possible. I can’t say I enjoyed a book about children being sex trafficked, but the writing style of this book was smart and tragic. Following Madhu, a transgender sex worker who now has “aged out” of the industry takes on a new gig - breaking in new girls, or ‘parcels’. And wow. That’s all i really want to say because I went into this blind with no expectations and it still blew me out of the water. The heartbreaking story behind Madhu - and the majority of other characters will have you flipping each page just to see what happens with their present storyline. A work of art.
kerriboland's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I heard Anosh Irani speak at the Denman Island Readers and Writers festival in 2022 and found him to be so interesting, well-spoken, funny and insightful. I picked this book up that weekend.
I think this story is very important and needs to be told. That said, I would love to hear it by an #ownvoices author. I know that Irani is from this neighbourhood in Mumbai and I'm sure he did extensive research into the lives of prostitutes and hijras in the red-light district, but it still felt like an outsider looking in. I was also looking for a little more light in the story. I wanted to hear some of Irani's humour coming through. I understand that there's nothing funny about sex trafficking and prostitution as slavery, but it was clear that there were sibling-like relationships between some of these women and I would have loved to have read about some of the antics they got up to while taking care of each other.
I think this story is very important and needs to be told. That said, I would love to hear it by an #ownvoices author. I know that Irani is from this neighbourhood in Mumbai and I'm sure he did extensive research into the lives of prostitutes and hijras in the red-light district, but it still felt like an outsider looking in. I was also looking for a little more light in the story. I wanted to hear some of Irani's humour coming through. I understand that there's nothing funny about sex trafficking and prostitution as slavery, but it was clear that there were sibling-like relationships between some of these women and I would have loved to have read about some of the antics they got up to while taking care of each other.
liliannattel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.0
Well written and vivid, however I found it had a restricted range of emotion that made the tone repetitive. I'd love to read an account by someone from within the Hijra community. As an abuse survivor, I know that in the worst circumstances, people can still carve out places for fun, pleasure, camaraderie, even if it's illusory for the most part. I found that missing here, as if inner torment is all there is. But maybe so--that's why I'd like to hear from someone within the community.