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jess_mango's review
4.0
Beautiful Thing is a non-fiction work about Leela a bar dancer in Bombay. Dance Bars are bars or restaurants where young women dance on stage to Bollywood music. The women get by on tips and gifts from their "kustomers".
I never knew much about the bar dancing culture in India so I found this book fascinating. It was one of those books that completely opened my eyes to someone with a completely different life than my own.
I won this book through a goodreads firstreads giveaway.
...more later...
I never knew much about the bar dancing culture in India so I found this book fascinating. It was one of those books that completely opened my eyes to someone with a completely different life than my own.
I won this book through a goodreads firstreads giveaway.
...more later...
shesnotthere's review against another edition
3.0
Thanks Goodreads for the giveaway!!! I commend the author on bringing India's dance bar culture to light. I am sure it was a difficult gaining trust & setting limits to obtain insight in such a harsh environment. I feel for Leela & the thousands of girls in that same plight. I can't imagine having to deal with such abuse. This book could have been amazing, but the choppy writing style was like fingernails on a chalk board for me. I am glad I read Beautiful Thing as it is a story that needs to be told. I just wish the book was written in a smoother style.
lavoiture's review
3.0
This was interesting, but not as interesting as Behind the Beautiful Forevers, nor as well-written. And that's about all I have to say about that right now.
thatkorigirl's review
4.0
Won as a First Read winner.
Starting off choppily, the author's tale of the sex industry in Bombai is somewhat poorly constructed, with interesting information but set up in a disjointed manner that lacked structure. However, after the first several sections, the writing picks up and the interesting tidbits that first persuaded me to continue reading keep coming. The author's first nonfiction work, the structure and writing style needs development, but the reporting was top notch.
Starting off choppily, the author's tale of the sex industry in Bombai is somewhat poorly constructed, with interesting information but set up in a disjointed manner that lacked structure. However, after the first several sections, the writing picks up and the interesting tidbits that first persuaded me to continue reading keep coming. The author's first nonfiction work, the structure and writing style needs development, but the reporting was top notch.
chinchinisbusyreading's review
5.0
What I love is how un-judgy un-condescending this account is, it was compelling and heart-wrenching by just being so matter of fact. I read it in a day: these women are incredible.
soniek's review
5.0
Written in 1st person narrative as Faleiro follows bar dancer Leela, giving us a closer view to her work at a dance bar, her personal life, her friends & acquaintances, her family & all the circumstances which shaped her life. Leela's story is the typical story of any woman with an abusive childhood, a toxic family & poverty which force her into prostitution, where the young girl escapes to the city where dreams come true, and where she picks up a dangerous profession & leads a life fraught with risks & dangers but which also provides her a perceived sense of freedom.
Through Leela's story, Faleiro brings to us the lesser known business of dance bars & the lives of bar dancers. I didn't know there's a hierarchy of such bars, descending from the filmy style dance bars to cheaper, yuckier bars where the line between dancing & prostitution for money becomes fuzzier.
The bottomline is both professions are looked down upon by society & law, leaving the workers vulnerable to abuse, health risks & poverty. Faleiro shows how these women fall through the cracks in our system, as they earn good sums of money but are yet unable to open bank accounts to save their earnings for their future. They are forced to live in the moment.
Which explains why the ban on dance bars hit them harder, forcing them to fall deeper into prostitution, something many of them wanted to avoid & found respite from in dance bars.
This is the first book I've ever read on dance bars, and it was quite insightful. Written in 1st person narrative, while Leela & her friend tell their story; Faleiro in her voice talks about the history & evolution of dance bars till their ban. She also brings in the perspectives of the bar owners, customers, NGO workers, brothel madams, pimps & prostitutes.
Faleiro has ensured the readers don't get insulated from the world of dance bars by the book. The language is unusually crass, she has included all the slangs & abuses in Hinglish. Leela & her friend casually narrate the darkest abuses they & other workers have ever experienced. While this is shocking to read, it also underlines how these abuses have become an integral part of their lives & hence how they talk about it so matter - of - factly. Faleiro herself has tried her best to not influence a world she's observing. The only time she tries to get involved is when Leela goes missing suddenly after being jobless due to the ban, when she tries to lend money to Leela as she inches towards prostitution due to penury (Leela refuses to take her money), and when she tries to stop Leela & her friend from taking up an obviously dangerous job in UAE.
The book ends with Leela & her friend taking up this UAE job. The reader will be definitely left with some degree of concern & curiosity about their safety & well - being. This is deliberate on Faleiro's part, to make the reader realize there isn't just one Leela, there are many like her struggling through life in Bombay & elsewhere. The book definitely leaves the reader more informed than before, and more sensitized towards how our current socioeconomic systems have failed so many women, despite policies being made on paper; on how laws passed for "the greater good" are passed without consideration on its effect on a minority.
Overall, this is yet another highly recommended book by Faleiro.
Through Leela's story, Faleiro brings to us the lesser known business of dance bars & the lives of bar dancers. I didn't know there's a hierarchy of such bars, descending from the filmy style dance bars to cheaper, yuckier bars where the line between dancing & prostitution for money becomes fuzzier.
The bottomline is both professions are looked down upon by society & law, leaving the workers vulnerable to abuse, health risks & poverty. Faleiro shows how these women fall through the cracks in our system, as they earn good sums of money but are yet unable to open bank accounts to save their earnings for their future. They are forced to live in the moment.
Which explains why the ban on dance bars hit them harder, forcing them to fall deeper into prostitution, something many of them wanted to avoid & found respite from in dance bars.
This is the first book I've ever read on dance bars, and it was quite insightful. Written in 1st person narrative, while Leela & her friend tell their story; Faleiro in her voice talks about the history & evolution of dance bars till their ban. She also brings in the perspectives of the bar owners, customers, NGO workers, brothel madams, pimps & prostitutes.
Faleiro has ensured the readers don't get insulated from the world of dance bars by the book. The language is unusually crass, she has included all the slangs & abuses in Hinglish. Leela & her friend casually narrate the darkest abuses they & other workers have ever experienced. While this is shocking to read, it also underlines how these abuses have become an integral part of their lives & hence how they talk about it so matter - of - factly. Faleiro herself has tried her best to not influence a world she's observing. The only time she tries to get involved is when Leela goes missing suddenly after being jobless due to the ban, when she tries to lend money to Leela as she inches towards prostitution due to penury (Leela refuses to take her money), and when she tries to stop Leela & her friend from taking up an obviously dangerous job in UAE.
The book ends with Leela & her friend taking up this UAE job. The reader will be definitely left with some degree of concern & curiosity about their safety & well - being. This is deliberate on Faleiro's part, to make the reader realize there isn't just one Leela, there are many like her struggling through life in Bombay & elsewhere. The book definitely leaves the reader more informed than before, and more sensitized towards how our current socioeconomic systems have failed so many women, despite policies being made on paper; on how laws passed for "the greater good" are passed without consideration on its effect on a minority.
Overall, this is yet another highly recommended book by Faleiro.
caitlinxmartin's review against another edition
3.0
Beautiful Thing is a fascinating read, opening a window into a world I suspect most of us never knew about, much less imagined. The women of Bombay's dance bars sell themselves in every way imaginable - through dancing, through sex, through their involvement in the criminal underground. These women proudly wear the hallmark of survivors.
Whether or not you find it in yourself to admire these women, once you've read this book you will at least understand what extreme poverty, gender discrimination, and pure desperation will drive people to do. I thought often throughout this book of many Americans who aren't willing to clean their own homes and can hire this out because of their privilege. This is a great book for taking you outside of your cushy world and into doing what is necessary.
Faleiro writes honestly and without judgement of these women and their stories. Much of this book is brutal and shocking and Faleiro doesn't shelter her reader from this. She also doesn't pretend that any of these lives are dignified, even though through her empathy she draws the reader in. There are no cliched happy endings here.
I liked the first part of the book very much, but found myself becoming a bit disengaged during the second half as the focus turned from the lives of these women to political concerns. Despite this, Beautiful Thing is a rich and well-written glimpse into a world I'm very glad I don't have to live in.
Whether or not you find it in yourself to admire these women, once you've read this book you will at least understand what extreme poverty, gender discrimination, and pure desperation will drive people to do. I thought often throughout this book of many Americans who aren't willing to clean their own homes and can hire this out because of their privilege. This is a great book for taking you outside of your cushy world and into doing what is necessary.
Faleiro writes honestly and without judgement of these women and their stories. Much of this book is brutal and shocking and Faleiro doesn't shelter her reader from this. She also doesn't pretend that any of these lives are dignified, even though through her empathy she draws the reader in. There are no cliched happy endings here.
I liked the first part of the book very much, but found myself becoming a bit disengaged during the second half as the focus turned from the lives of these women to political concerns. Despite this, Beautiful Thing is a rich and well-written glimpse into a world I'm very glad I don't have to live in.
abhijeetgaiha's review
5.0
The author treats all her protagonists in a humane manner, not judging, not condemning. This is the triumph of the writing. That’s what kept me reading through, what is, unbelievably bleak and disheartening content.
emmkayt's review
4.0
Bleak but full of life, this work of narrative non-fiction centres on the life of Leela, a 19 year old bar dancer in Bombay, who gamely and determinedly insists on claiming whatever freedoms her life's constraints afford her. Faleiro spent five years immersed in the world of bar dancers, and does an excellent job conveying both their agency - dancing in a bar provided opportunities they were eager to seize - as well as the terrible impact of misogyny and caste (as Leela observes early in the book, she and all of her coworkers had either been raped or sold by a blood relative). The use of swathes of untranslated colloquial Hindi was a challenge, the pidgin was a bit odd, and I always have some discomfort with reconstructed dialogue, especially when the author wasn't present. But still, powerful.
mandi_m's review against another edition
Review from wonderful customer Denise!
The first half of the book tells the story about bar dancers and the second half deals with the effect of the ban imposed on Bombay’s dance bars, by the government.
The conversations with the characters flow naturally in a mix of English, Hindi, and slang that is oddly easy to understand sometimes. Things are told as they are, nothing more or less.
The life of dance bar girls is told through the story of Leela (a bar dancer), her family, her past, her friends from the same profession, her customers, dance bar owners, the underworld, the policemen, the pimps, the health hazards.
Life changes for Leela and the others in the most unexpected way.
You grow to care for Leela. The sad, moving fate to which she and the others are pushed to makes the reader think and question the “morality” of society.
The author brings it out, revealing the true nature of “men” – who move from one bed to another, from one woman to another, to satisfy their own needs. And women (like Leela) end up resorting to alcohol and false promises of happiness and normal life
The first half of the book tells the story about bar dancers and the second half deals with the effect of the ban imposed on Bombay’s dance bars, by the government.
The conversations with the characters flow naturally in a mix of English, Hindi, and slang that is oddly easy to understand sometimes. Things are told as they are, nothing more or less.
The life of dance bar girls is told through the story of Leela (a bar dancer), her family, her past, her friends from the same profession, her customers, dance bar owners, the underworld, the policemen, the pimps, the health hazards.
Life changes for Leela and the others in the most unexpected way.
You grow to care for Leela. The sad, moving fate to which she and the others are pushed to makes the reader think and question the “morality” of society.
The author brings it out, revealing the true nature of “men” – who move from one bed to another, from one woman to another, to satisfy their own needs. And women (like Leela) end up resorting to alcohol and false promises of happiness and normal life