These books don't exactly go together, but it does make sense as to why I would read them back to back. A Fine Balance is one of my favorite novels – in my top five for sure – but it's dark. It's impossible not to get emotionally attached to the characters, and they have some seriously awful things happen to them. It's best surrounded with some candy fiction like Twilight before diving into something else more meaningful.
I saw the Twilight movie in spite of hearing that it was mediocre at best. That's pretty accurate. Actually that's generous. I think the only reason the first movie didn't totally flop was that they cast pretty are charismatic actors that drove the high school kiddies crazy. I'm sure folks were pretty excited to see Cedric Diggory alive and well, also. I wasn't inspired to read the books after that, although I remember a friend saying the books were good. I ended up seeing New Moon in the theatre (mostly for Taylor Lautner's abs), so I was reminded of the books.
Twilight the movie actually sticks pretty close to the plot of the book. The book does it better of course. I certainly wouldn't say these books are anything special. Yet I totally enjoyed it and plan to read the second one. I'd describe the first book as 'fun'.
I read this book for the first time in 2002 or 2003 and I loved it. A few months ago, I saw a practically new copy of it in the thrift store for $3, so I decided to give it another go. I remember a lot about the story, but certainly not all of it. It's well worth reading twice. I loved it again the second time. It's just over 800 pages long, yet it's a quick read. I got very caught up in the characters lives.
On top of being really good, this book is written by a Canadian author. Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay in 1952, and he moved to Toronto in 1974. I would read this book just because it was written in the city I am living in. I do like reading Canadian authors. Any suggestions?
The book is about four people and how their lives unexpectedly come together. It's set in Bombay in a backdrop of corrupt politics and injustice from the top down.
As I mentioned before, there are four central characters, and really one a few handfuls more of secondary characters. One this that I didn't remember from my first read was the number of coincidences that occur. All of the characters lives are interconnected. They keep running into each other, sometimes years apart, often not knowing how connected all their lives are. I think Ministry really pulls it off. The surprising this about that is that I normally hate when books are chalked full of coincidences. I complain about it all the time as my number one pet peeve of novels. Funny that I didn't remember at all that A Fine Balance is like that, yet it didn't annoy me at all.
If you haven't read it, please do. It's so good! If you need to borrow Harry Potter or Twilight with it for some pre-or-post easy reading, I can hook you up.
2 comments:
I think I will pass on Twilight but I am inspired to re-read A Fine Balance!
Nat
I didn't like A Fine Balance. Can't fathom reading it twice - barely got through it the first time, and when I got to the end I was so mad. Perhaps it was just my state of mind. My suggestion - don't take A Fine Balance on holidays to the beach with you. Wrong book for that situation.
Marcia
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