If You Finished, How DId You Rate This Book?

I would give this book 3 stars. The character development was strong. But I was dissatisfied with the ending. I would have liked to have read of the reunion or the friends in the states, follow up on Iqbal and Mumtaz (who may have been my favorite character of the book). The whole premise of the book was to reunite friends who had spent many years apart, the struggle to make it happen, but are left with a plane leaving India. As a reader I anticipated a plane leaving India and had spent 300+ pgs waiting to read of the reunion that didn’t play out. An epilogue here would have been much appreciated. It was the ending that dropped the rating for me.

I’ve read other books by this author and loved them. I’ve settled on a 3.5 star rating for this book. The focus of the book shifted, and I liked the ending. However, I think too much time was spent on making us think the book was about one friend dying and wanting a reunion after 30 years. During the final third of the book, I thought the primary purpose of the book was to learn about the conflict in 1993 (is that the right year?), the differences in religion, caste, and class in India, the relationships between friends, family, and spouses, and how each person deals with those things. Before the final day in the book, I would have given the book only 3 stars. I thought the final day, and the airport scene especially raised the rating for me. I couldn’t stop reading at the end.

This was a very well-written book, but because of all the reasons stated so well in the above comments, I only gave it 3 stars. It did seem unfinished after such a dramatic build up to the airport departure when the goal was a reunion of the women. Just not very satisfactory even though it had been enthralling.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Over all I give it 3 1/2 stars. I liked the characters but I thought it was more about the relationship between the each married couple rather than the 4 girlfriends as promoted. I also thought that it threw a lot of issues at the reader (domestic abuse, sexual assault, having a queer character, Muslim vs Paris)  but only skimmed the surface a on each of them. It is disappointing that the reunion of the friends isn’t part of the book, then maybe we would see their friendship in action. It would have been nice to learn of Zoha’s transition to living in America and how she manages. Then meanwhile how is Iqbal managing back in Bombay? Maybe that’s a sequel in the making?