What I loved most about this book was that Lahiri's writing is simple, but somehow rich and poetic at the same time. She has a knack for setting events up gently, and making the follow through feel so impactful and emotional, even though her narration is very simple and straightforward.

I felt privileged to follow along with the Gangulis; to see how they learned and grew and created traditions all their own, to see how the learned to love, accept, respect and understand one another despite their very different individual journeys. The story wavered a little towards the very end, with

Moushumi's affair skewing the pacing a tad

but overall, this was a great read.

The title of this book is a little misleading. This isn't a book about embodying your namesake, or about the power of names. Instead it's a beautiful, emotional documentation of one family's journey in learning what home means to them, and in finding themselves. It's a book about one's relationship with family and culture, the struggles of being known, and of knowing yourself. I'm so glad I read this. 


CONTENT WARNINGS:

Death (chapter 1),  Transphobia (a single instance of a certain outdated term for transgender people, now considered a slur, Chapter 5), Death of a parent (chapter 7), Deadnaming (chapter 9), Infidelity (chapter 10), Adult/Minor relationship (chapter 10)

 This veered off into Cheese Town quite a few times, and I'd have liked for the MCs to actually work through the personal issues that caused a lot of their conflicts. But overall this was a cute, fun and quick read.

If you're not too bothered by too much cheesiness in your romance novels, then give this a go. 

 I'm actually so upset that this wasn't on my radar sooner. This was originally released in 2012. 2012!!!!!!! Why aren't more people talking about this?!?!?

If you've read the original Grimm Brother's tale, all the plot twists in this book won't come as a massive shock to you - but don't let that stop you from picking it up. This retelling is so beautifully crafted, so well told, and full of real-world truths. It feels like an original tale, and really holds its own. There's so much to love about this book, but I think my favorite things about it were Alyrra's character, and her relationship with Falala and her new found family. The world was so easy to get lost into, too.

GAH. I need more people to talk about this book. Please read it.

 

It was super duper ballsy of the marketing team to compare this book to The Bear and The Nightingale and Spinning Silver. Incredibly brave! Awe-inspiringly gutsy! Do I commend them for their tenacity? Yes? Do I hate them because they fucking led me on? Also, yes.

I kind of understand why they did it. I do. This book is trying so hard to be like both those other books, that it’s kind of embarrassing. It tries to match TBaTN’s sweeping, lyrical prose. It tries to match Spinning Silver’s competent, engaging self-contained storytelling. But it falls short on both accounts – so the writing is purple prose-y in a way that’s not very pleasant (it reminded me of Roshani Chokshi’s writing circa Star-Touched Queen) and the structure of the story was extremely choppy and clumsy.

The first two chapters weren’t too bad, but it becomes very clear very fast that this book really only cared about two things: 1) The romance and b) All the lore that the author wrote up for this story and loved so much that she simply had to shoehorn. all of it. in.

Like, listen. We all write too much lore and backstory for our characters and their worlds. Some of us just have the good sense to know that not everything needs to make it into the finished product. You can’t just have your main characters stop what they’re doing to tell a random-ass story every other paragraph. You can’t. Stop it.

I think I wouldn’t have been so harsh with this book if it had been YA – because I’m doing a thing, you see, where I acknowledge that I’m not the target audience and some things that work for YA audiences might not work for me, an adult woman. This book felt like it was written as a YA book – a babied down watery YA book, sure, but a YA book all the same – but was switched to an adult book at the last minute because the author wanted to shove some seggs in there.

I could go on about how much I disliked this book and how much of a chore it was to read. But much like I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up anymore, I can’t bring myself to talk about it anymore. I just can’t stop being mad about this thing being compared to The Bear and The Nightingale and Spinning Silver. It is, quite frankly, insulting.