You Bring The Distant Near by Mitali Perkins
*note* This book was ever so kindly sent to me by Macmillan for an honest review.
I won't say that I loved this book, but I can see why other people would.
It felt more like a memoir rather than a story of a family. There was no true plot, just different perspectives of each woman in the family. This was a coming-of-age story, learning how each individual navigated through their inherited culture and how they evolved as their own person even into adulthood.
Although it wasn't entirely what I was expecting, it was still nice to delve into the eyes of immigrants coming into America. I can only imagine the culture shock these women had to endure from moving from England, after having been born in India. And it's not like America is an easy place to grow up in especially when you're foreign and pubescent.
Here you have the mother, who is so purely Bengali, that her daughters become so against the culture. They'd rather be anything but Bengali. I found it interesting that Tara (Starry) is so focused on being an American and sunny is so focused on reading and staying herself.
The fates of Tara and Sunny were completely different from what I would have imagined. Sunny was a feminist and a brilliant scholar, who in the end followed her heart and is now living in a small tiny apartment in Harlem. Tara, whose future didn't look so promising and someone who wanted to be anyone but herself, is a movie star living with her best friend who is now her husband in a Manhattan penthouse.
When the perspectives change and we see into the minds of Sunny and Tara's daughters, it was fascinating to see how they felt about their inherited culture, which was not at all what I expected.
Sunny's daughter, Chantal, is struggling with her identity with whether or not she is black or Indian. She wants to be known as both but society is only going to look at her as one or the other.
Tara's daughter, Anna, however Embraces her Bengali heritage and identifies herself solely as being Bengali.
I wanted more out of this book, more plot, more conflict, but I think that's because I couldn't even remotely relate to any of the characters, and that itself disappoints me.
It's a very important story of four women navigating through life and struggling to figure out who they are without being identified by their culture.
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