Bitter sweets by roopa farooki bewitching and haunting at the same time...

Bitter Sweets by Roopa Farooki Bewitching And Haunting At The Same Time... With this spellbinding first novel about the destructive lies three immigrant generations of a Pakistani/Bangladeshi family tell each other, Roo pa Farooki adds a fresh new voice to the company of Zadie Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri and Arudhati Roy.Henna Rub is a precocious teenager whose wheeler-dealer father never misses a business opportunity and whose sumptuous Calcutta marriage to wealthy romantic Ric ky-Rashid Karim is achieved by an audacious network of lies. Ricky will learn the truth about his seductive bride, but the way is already paved for a future of double lives and deception--family traits that will filter naturally through the generations, forming an instinctive and unspoken tradition. Even as a child, their daughter Shona, herself conceived on a lie and born in a liars house, finds telling fibs as easy as ABC. But years later, living above a sweatshop in South Londons Tooting Bec, it is Shona who is forced to discover unspeakable truths about her loved ones and come to terms with what superficially holds her family together--and also keeps them apart--across geographical, emotional and cultural distance. Roopa Farooki has crafted an intelligent, engrossing and emotional y powerful Indian family saga that will stay with you long after youve read the last page. Personal Review: Bitter Sweets by Roopa Farooki I was charmed by Roopa Farooki's novel, Bitter Sweets--a remarkable effort for a first novel. As the name i mplies, I was bewitched and haunted at the same time. Bitter Sweet covers a period of 40 years--beginning when a scheming shopkeeper marries off his beautiful daughter, Henna, to the rich and handsome Rashid "Ricky" Karim. On his wedding night, Ricky discovers that he's been duped. His new bride is uneducated, underage and lazy. Thus begins a tradition of lies and deceptions that carry on through to future generations until a riveting climax years later. Through the course of Bitter Sweets, we see the plot through the eyes of a number of characters including the romantic Ricky, the shallow and manipulative Henna and their beautiful and intel igent daughter, Shona. Farooki deals with a number of complex issues including what happens when you fall out of love, how easy it is to deceive yourself and lie to others, and what does it take to make one happy. And what makes these topics so poignant is Farooki's beautiful prose. Shona observes "The truth was overrated; it was rarely pure and never simple, that was the real truth that she had known since she was a child." But when the lies threaten to destroy her family, Shona must relearn how to deal with others openly and honestly. "She couldn't claim to have been taught to behave this way; it was the way she had always been. Or was deception just another language she'd been taught, along with Urdu, Bangla and English? Was it something that could be unlearned, or was it a part of her?" Bitter Sweets is a book that I couldn't put down and when I finished, I couldn't stop thinking about. I think that should be the goal of any writer when setting out to write a book. For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price: Bitter Sweets by Roopa Farooki 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price!