Shalini, a young woman from Bangalore, feels lost following her mother's death. She decides to abandon her life to travel to Kashmir and search out a traveling salesman who once had a tumultuous relationship with her mother when Shalini was a child.

Even if you, like me, know only the vague details of Indian politics, THE FAR FIELD is a gripping, gorgeous read full of complicated, frustrating characters battling a range of issues both within and outside their control.

The book is in no hurry to take us through Shalini's journey, but the masterful way Vijay unspools the plot - through the converging timelines of Shalini's childhood and her current day - kept me turning the pages.

I think many readers will find Shalini infuriating. She's a privileged woman who barges into the lives of strangers who are just trying to get through the day and stay alive, and she stays almost completely unaware of this through the majority of the book. She's essentially trying to Eat Pray Love her way through a war zone. She makes terrible decisions and has a lot of obviously unfinished business with herself and her mother, and yet I continued to hold out hope that things would click into place for her. Whether they did or not...come talk to me in the comments if you've read it!