Erin's Book #28: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

I found this book at a library sale for $1 and, intrigued by the beautiful cover, title, and story about India, took a chance on it. The story is about Sai, a teenage orphan living with her retired judge grandfather and his cook. Their home is a remnant of better times - the formerly glorious estate is crumbling, leaking, and bug-infested, yet they are still considered wealthy. Their neighbors are Father Booty and Uncle Potty and two sisters who act as tutors for Sai. The cook (as he's referred to through the entire book) is a very poor and lonely man, kept alive only because of his son, Biju, living in the US. Inheritance jumps around, telling the stories of all.

I have mixed feelings about it. The writing is beautiful but not always easy to follow. Desai sometimes jumps time periods and locations within chapters, but doesn't always draw attention to the shift. She's also very fond of using pronouns instead of names, so I wasn't always sure who she was even writing about it. I was shocked to find that I was halfway through the book, as I felt that very little had actually happened. Yet the last third I couldn't put down.

The first 2/3 are very descriptive, almost an a-day-in-the-life of kind of thing. Sai starts a romance with her new tutor, Gyan, a college student. The book opens with a robbery at the judge's home, a terrifying act that isn't returned to until the last third of the book. As the political climate of India changes and the GNLF (Gorkha National Liberation Front) takes control, the book becomes much more exciting as the lives of all the characters are forever changed.

I found it not entirely fulfilling but was intrigued by the political unrest of India (and the powerlessness of the police), as well as the difficulty of Biju, trying to make it as an immigrant in India. I don't require perfect endings where everything is neatly tied in a bow, but I felt the end came very abruptly and felt very unfinal.