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A review by racheln23
The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim
3.0
3 ⭐️s. The book began in a promising manner, but took an annoying, culturally cliched turn. First, to sum up this book in a line: it is about a girl who goes to India and gets in a relationship with a boy that will only last 9 months because she is returning to the US. That is all. So if you are in to seeing what their bland relationship is like, read the book. There were some things that I absolutely loved, some things that made me cringe, and others that made me roll my eyes because they could have been done so much better.
First, I thought the book was excellent in the beginning. I loved getting to know more about the Indian culture, and there are so many similarities that I recognize between Delhi and living in a big city in Mexico that I was totally drinking it up and chuckling a lot. The writing was so easy to read and pleasant. I also loved how the author was focusing on an important group of people - first generation kids who are American born and have a culture from another country and the confusion that they can feel going to the country of their roots and looking like a native but not being quite like those natives. As a mom of American born Mexican children, I so love seeing that representation (even though they are too young to read this - ha!).
I also loved hearing about some real issues in India and found the clash of religions an important thing to highlight.
The negatives:
A huge focus in this book is the #metoo movement. This would be an excellent topic to highlight in the book if it had not piggybacked on the redundant hashtag. If we had seen some things happening and then seen the response in characters, it would have been way more impactful. Instead, the reader feels like they are reading a Facebook newsfeed of #metoo (honestly, it’s super disconnected and overdone) and newspaper headlines for a quarter of the book. Okay, we get it’s a problem, but let’s stop reading headlines and actually see things happening and how they negatively affect women in their day to day life (and Im talking about more than just a side comment by a supporting character that just sounds like a #metoo hashtag).
And if we are worried about MeToo, why don’t we get a glimpse in to the issues with the cast system. I loved hearing about a woman who is a house cleaner who wouldn’t clean a bathroom because she was not that low of a cast. Let’s see some action there. Let’s see some equality. The contrast with having a main theme be MeToo and then not address more human rights issues seems off. It seemed like the author accepted this as a fine cultural point to just sweep under the rug and accept.
Going along with my MeToo annoyance would be Kabir’s reaction to being involved with MeToo. He mopes around and makes himself be a victim. Gross.
Kabir started off pretty endearing with his love for history, and showing Noreen around town, but by mid book I was so annoyed with him. (Tangent, it was also annoying how Noreen and Kabir were getting to know each other and be interested in each other, and then the book literally skips over like 6 months).
My other huge complaint has to deal with the fact that I found this book in the teen section at my library. It is a horrible book for teens, in my opinion. Noreen is 18, just graduated from
HIGH SCHOOL and Kabir is 24. That is eyebrow raising. But what is worse is that Noreen basically starts living with Kabir in a hovel; her mom has no problem with this. The mom-daughter relationship is disturbing in that she doesn’t care that her daughter is doing this. Her mom gives her blessing to have her boyfriend over to the house for sex (while she’s there) and she also has a guy spend the weekend for sex. And then they are all eating breakfast together. It is so weird. Not to mention a disturbing inclusion about Noreen’s first love affair which plainly stated it involved her having sex all summer... and she had to have been just finishing junior year in high school. That is a little unnecessary and adult and awkward for how the book begins rather sweetly (and I guess deceptively).
I get having the overbearing parents and rebeling from that. But at least have some pride. The other disappointing (and once again, weird) inclusion was Noreen drinking and being around lots of drugs, and her boyfriend living that life. He honestly starting sounding like a bum (stopped pursuing his career - so what in the world did he do to make money? Or was his living off his parents’ money, making him a true 24 year old loser?). AND Noreen’s mom smoking joints. It does not align! She is a professional and she’s smoking joints?! What kind of message does that send to teens? “Having sex, doing drugs, and being laissez-faire about it is no big deal! You can live a great, normal life with no consequences and still get a professional job! But, watch out for that MeToo movement!”
The three stars because I loved all the Indian culture. And I finished the book (I almost tossed it aside at 75% done). But I do not recommend, unless you just want to read the beginning.
First, I thought the book was excellent in the beginning. I loved getting to know more about the Indian culture, and there are so many similarities that I recognize between Delhi and living in a big city in Mexico that I was totally drinking it up and chuckling a lot. The writing was so easy to read and pleasant. I also loved how the author was focusing on an important group of people - first generation kids who are American born and have a culture from another country and the confusion that they can feel going to the country of their roots and looking like a native but not being quite like those natives. As a mom of American born Mexican children, I so love seeing that representation (even though they are too young to read this - ha!).
I also loved hearing about some real issues in India and found the clash of religions an important thing to highlight.
The negatives:
A huge focus in this book is the #metoo movement. This would be an excellent topic to highlight in the book if it had not piggybacked on the redundant hashtag. If we had seen some things happening and then seen the response in characters, it would have been way more impactful. Instead, the reader feels like they are reading a Facebook newsfeed of #metoo (honestly, it’s super disconnected and overdone) and newspaper headlines for a quarter of the book. Okay, we get it’s a problem, but let’s stop reading headlines and actually see things happening and how they negatively affect women in their day to day life (and Im talking about more than just a side comment by a supporting character that just sounds like a #metoo hashtag).
And if we are worried about MeToo, why don’t we get a glimpse in to the issues with the cast system. I loved hearing about a woman who is a house cleaner who wouldn’t clean a bathroom because she was not that low of a cast. Let’s see some action there. Let’s see some equality. The contrast with having a main theme be MeToo and then not address more human rights issues seems off. It seemed like the author accepted this as a fine cultural point to just sweep under the rug and accept.
Going along with my MeToo annoyance would be Kabir’s reaction to being involved with MeToo. He mopes around and makes himself be a victim. Gross.
Kabir started off pretty endearing with his love for history, and showing Noreen around town, but by mid book I was so annoyed with him. (Tangent, it was also annoying how Noreen and Kabir were getting to know each other and be interested in each other, and then the book literally skips over like 6 months).
My other huge complaint has to deal with the fact that I found this book in the teen section at my library. It is a horrible book for teens, in my opinion. Noreen is 18, just graduated from
HIGH SCHOOL and Kabir is 24. That is eyebrow raising. But what is worse is that Noreen basically starts living with Kabir in a hovel; her mom has no problem with this. The mom-daughter relationship is disturbing in that she doesn’t care that her daughter is doing this. Her mom gives her blessing to have her boyfriend over to the house for sex (while she’s there) and she also has a guy spend the weekend for sex. And then they are all eating breakfast together. It is so weird. Not to mention a disturbing inclusion about Noreen’s first love affair which plainly stated it involved her having sex all summer... and she had to have been just finishing junior year in high school. That is a little unnecessary and adult and awkward for how the book begins rather sweetly (and I guess deceptively).
I get having the overbearing parents and rebeling from that. But at least have some pride. The other disappointing (and once again, weird) inclusion was Noreen drinking and being around lots of drugs, and her boyfriend living that life. He honestly starting sounding like a bum (stopped pursuing his career - so what in the world did he do to make money? Or was his living off his parents’ money, making him a true 24 year old loser?). AND Noreen’s mom smoking joints. It does not align! She is a professional and she’s smoking joints?! What kind of message does that send to teens? “Having sex, doing drugs, and being laissez-faire about it is no big deal! You can live a great, normal life with no consequences and still get a professional job! But, watch out for that MeToo movement!”
The three stars because I loved all the Indian culture. And I finished the book (I almost tossed it aside at 75% done). But I do not recommend, unless you just want to read the beginning.