A review by charlottejones952
The Handsworth Times by Sharon Duggal
5.0
I heard about this book a few years ago when Mercedes read it and have been wanting to own a copy since. I finally read it for the Asian Readathon this month and am so happy to have gotten to it. From the very first page I was invested in the Agarwal family; each family member had distinct personalities and roles to play in the story and through them I learnt about the experience of Indian families in Birmingham in the 1980s.
I grew up in a working class area of Manchester in the early 1990s and there were aspects of my childhood surroundings in this story, giving me a strange sense of nostalgia despite having such vastly different experiences to everyone in the book.
Each characters' story line is heartbreaking but throughout the book I was heartened to see that they were slowly helping to mend each other, slowly revealing each others' secrets and getting to know each other better through their shared tragedy.
5 out of 5 stars!
I grew up in a working class area of Manchester in the early 1990s and there were aspects of my childhood surroundings in this story, giving me a strange sense of nostalgia despite having such vastly different experiences to everyone in the book.
Each characters' story line is heartbreaking but throughout the book I was heartened to see that they were slowly helping to mend each other, slowly revealing each others' secrets and getting to know each other better through their shared tragedy.
5 out of 5 stars!