Let's Talk About Books, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                     This novel is no walk in the park, but it is absorbing reading.

                                      The novel's descriptions of the impoverishment of its Indian characters is so palpable, one can almost see and sense the smell of rotting garbage and sewage.  If you think being a spinster in America is bad, unwanted women have it worse.  I am not just talking about the plain, but the disabled, in all senses, who have no marital prospects.  So, they are bartered off for a year to a man in a mock marriage, just so he can obtain a passport to live abroad.

                                       And if he is lucky to get abroad--in this case, England--he is lucky is he can find work, due to discrimination and class indifference, which is just as bad in England as India.

                                       "The Year Of The Runaways" covers that period of time with a group of several families who endure these very experiences.  It is gorgeously written, but heartbreaking, yet I could not pull away from it, because I cared so much about the characters.

                                         Earlier, I wrote about looking for a book to sweep me away, and hons, I am telling you, this is it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                          It is sweeping, deeply moving, and compassionate.

                                          Put it on your reading list, at once!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!