Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A Life Less Ordinary: A Memoir by Baby Halder

Really wanted to love this novel but couldnt even finish it.....

I feel horrible for giving this book a bad rating, but I want to be as honest as possible with my reviews. I really wanted to love this book, for the author's life and everything she had to endure is truly remarkable. I also thought this would be an important book to read as a woman, due to the main theme of how women are treated in other parts of the world. I just had a very hard time reading it because it was so poorly written, so choppy and confusing at times (i.e., going from one type of narrative to another - writing in first person to writing about herself in the third person; confusing dialogue; and paragraphs that seemed to end at times without continuing the thought or story.

While I acknowledge how amazing it is for someone who came from such a difficult upbringing and little education to have written a novel that not only got published, but is beloved in so many countries, I wish there was a lot more editing, so that her story could have been told more fluidly, as it truly is a story to be told and shared with the world. Perhaps it was lost in translation somehow when transcribed from Hindi into English?

Regardless, I did not personally like this book, although the author's story is absolutely incredible and worth knowing about. Therefore, I can only recommend it with caution- if you can look past the writing, you may enjoy it.