I read this book as my book club’s BOOK OF THE MONTH, thanks for choosing this book because I wanted to read it. It was shortlisted for the Booker prize 2020. I was buddy reading with a special friend of mine.I am thankful to you guys, without you I won’t be able to read this difficult book, talking and discussing with you made this reading easier.

This book started with a simple mother-daughter relationship where the mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Antara started taking care of her mother, she took her mother to her home. while living together a doubt grows inside her, ”is it true mother really forgetting old stuff”; but she never forgets to insult her in front of everyone. Antara couldn’t find a moment when her mother didn’t try to defame her or discredited her for her drawings, even she burned all Antara’s drawings and tell her never to make any drawings or paintings. Antara absorbed all in silence and tried to remember her childhood, her mother doing all that she did from the beginning then what is actually she forgets? She didn’t forget to insult her! Antara started recalling her memory.

It’s written with emotional aspects from a daughter’s point of view, Antara’s point of view, and slowly I started getting experience the true view of the whole plot. This story actually evolved around a narcissistic mother and daughter’s relationship.

I understand this is a story of a traumatized girl who’s now apparently getting the responsibility of her sick mother who seems to suffer memory loss due to Alzheimer’s.

The author here facilitates the view of a girl whose childhood was not loved by her mother nor embraced by her father. She had to face a difficult, neglected childhood. There are two parallel stories embedded like cobwebs, one is Antara’s childhood memories and the other one is today’s situation.

Her mother shows very clear signs of a narcissistic mentality. I was awestruck by Avni Doshi’s bare, blatant prose. Every line of this book sounds emotionless, raw, bare, and has an earthy tone making reading unapologetically rigid. Sometimes its even gross. This narrative is not suitable for many, it will stripe your soul with an easy-going style, it hurts you. You need time to get the reflection of every single word.

It feels horrible when I find Antara inherits the same narcissistic traits from her mother. It’s commendable that the author facilitates the view from a traumatized, neglected child of a narcissist mother but it also nurtures a proverb- like mother like daughter- it’s really harmful to society. Then the survivors would always be mistrusted, scrutinized, and never get a chance to go back to normal life. Not all victims adopted their narc parent’s traits! This book gives great insights into a traumatized mind.

Author Avni Doshi has done a commendable job in giving voice to the perturbing mind. This book is a boon, and also a curse for society. This book is very insightful to know a traumatized brain, their perspective, but at the same time it failed to give us a proper storyline, it felt like she tried to put her knowledge, in the pictorial narrative she served it in a cloak of a story.

Review by : Mili Das (Click to know more about her)