Review: The God of Small Things

When I started rating books on goodreads, I decided that I would only give a 5 star rating to a book on the rarest of rare occasions. At the time of writing this review, only two books - The Lord of The Rings and Love in the time of Cholera, had a 5 star rating. It gives me great pleasure to add The God of Small Things to this list. Set in the backdrop of a small town in Kerala, this book tells the story of a family over several generations of its existence. The heroes of this book are two small children and their mother. Arundhati Roy very beautifully and craftily tells their tale, describing things as they would have seen it from their own eyes. As a malayali myself, what I felt while reading this book was a wave of nostalgia. All my memories of Kerala gathered through summer vacations spent with my grandparents and through movies that I watched with my parents, came rushing back when I read this book. The author frequently uses malayalam words and references to convey the feelings of the characters and I only wish that non-malayalis reading this book are able to grasp the beauty of these phrases (the author very often doesn't give a translation). This book was able to take my emotions and play with it like a yo-yo. Rarely have I smiled so often while reading a book and never have I felt such deep sorrow while reading one either (I was traveling in the metro when I read the end so luckily I was able to control my emotions). I urge everyone, especially Malayalis to read this book. The story of these two children has left me with such a deep affection for them that I have now truly been able to understand the meaning of the phrase "Book Hangover"

My Rating: 5/5