Reviews with content warning for Violence - Honor

Largely deserving all its accolades, Honor is a deeply moving work. Umrigar, a journalist and novelist, is clearly invested in exposing violence in India, much of it aimed at women, committed in the name of religion and tradition. Some aspects feel personal, as confirmed by an essay on her website. Despite this, I couldn’t give the book four stars, and here’s why:

The story begins with Shannon, a white American journalist recovering from a major surgery. Smita, a colleague and friend, cuts her vacation short to be by Shannon’s side. Indian-born Smita feels manipulated into finishing a story for Shannon, since she had vowed never to return to India. The relationships feel murky, especially with Nandini, who is Shannon’s translator, and Mohan, a male friend of some means. Ultimately, Shannon and Nandini feel unnecessary to the plot.

The second part shifts to Meena, a Hindu woman who in defiance of her community falls in love with and marries a Muslim man. The response from her family and village is horrific. As Smita takes over Shannon's story, she is tasked with interviewing Meena. Mohan, not a journalist, but simply a friend of Shannon’s, ends up as Smita’s translator and guide. Umrigar’s writing is at its best when telling Meena’s story—it’s poetic, poignant, and tender. However, Smita’s character, filled with dithering and logistical concerns, feels tedious, though when revealed her own backstory is revealed.

The third part intensifies, focusing on Meena’s harrowing ordeal, a section filled with distressing but crucial scenes. After a shocking climax to her story, Umrigar unfortunately, shifts to the romance between Smita and Mohan. I found this shift jarring. For me it took away Honor’s emotional gravity. The shift from Meena’s tragic narrative to a will-they-won’t-they romance undermined the emotional depth of Meena’s journey. Upon reading Umrigar’s essay, "Reclaiming Honor", (https://umrigar.com/honor-essay) I learned her intent was to contrast Meena’s choosing love regardless of the cost and Smita’s difficulty entertaining love even though doing so would be of no consequence to someone of her class/religion/status. All I can say is that the transition left me so frustrated I wanted to throw the book across the room.

In contrast, the book also features a deeper, more conflicted love story, i.e. the one between Smita and India. Her complex feelings for the country of her birth more befits the novel, and I appreciated the depiction of what had happened in Smita’s childhood to produce such complicated emotions in her.

So for me, ultimately this was a worthwhile read, and an important work, but I do give it less than a book of this caliber should merit.

Content Warnings

abigailslate's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

readingwithcoffee's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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

eelkin's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional informative inspiring sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

about 80 pages into this book, i started to think i should probably quit it- smita, the protagonist, initially seems irritable, rude, and often unpleasant to be around, and the plot seemed intriguing but moved very slow. it’s when meena’s storyline is fully introduced that Honor comes into it’s own. after finishing it, i think it is one of the best love stories i have ever read, especially the parallelism between abdul/meena and smita and her love interest. i think so many topics are covered in this and so much discussion can come out of it. the balance of writing about love, religion, patriotism, the patriarchy, class differences, and india as the nuanced topics they deserve to be places thrity umrigar as a magnificent writer in my eyes. read this book!!!

Content Warnings

hillysreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

kfincham's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

erikaannee's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

5.0

This book started a bit slow but don’t let that fool you. Once things got moving I couldn’t put it down and it truly emotionally moved me in ways a book hadnt done in years - I think I was crying through the entire last 100 pages. It was a beautiful story that had me crying, laughing and did a great job of layering the stories of the main characters and weaving them into each other. The writing was simple and clean, yet powerful and so poetic at times.

Content Warnings

More...