I borrowed this book, along with two others, from a friend shortly before leaving for India, and brought all three with me to read while I'm here. So far, I've read three books in toto: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin [itself borrowed, funnily enough, from the aforementioned friend] and 2 States by Chetan Bhagat. I thoroughly enjoyed all three, though the first was definitely the most literary, if you will, of the bunch. The other two were good stories, and I read both in two days flat. They're the sort of books people in India would call good time-pass: not exactly life-changing, but entertaining, and not a bad way to spend a few hours of your life. Especially when I was reading 2 States, and now while reading Born Confused, I found/ind myself looking up from the pages of the books groggily, having forgotten that I'm still in India, or that the day has progressed around me while my nose was stuck in a book. I can hardly remember the last time I used to feel this way.
During my elementary, middle, and high school summers, my sister and I would go to the library every two weeks (or whenever our books were due) like clockwork, to return the read ones, renew the unread, and select a fresh new pile of books to delve into. Somehow, that ritual became more and more diluted as I entered college and neared its completion, so that the two-week stretch I still have in Chennai, with little else to do but read books during all my free time, feels almost like a foreign concept to me. But I'm beginning to remember and love the way I used to feel about books, when they were just stories to dive into and not literary masterworks to analyze, as I began to see them in college.
All of that, though, was a preface to the real topic of this entry, which is Born Confused. I've known of this book's existence for quite some time, first becoming aware of it around that time somewhere during high school when books about young adults searching for their South Asian identity became all the rage. I never read it, though, because I was a bit disillusioned by some of its kindred spirits, which portrayed petulant children of immigrants who just didn't get "it"about their heritage and somehow managed to find "it" by the end of the book. I thought this one started out a bit the same, but as I'm getting further into it (it's rather long for a book of its genre), I'm beginning to relate more and more to the protagonist. The poor girl (Dimple) is completely lost about Indian culture, and somehow seems less Indian at all junctures than her very-much-white best friend, a "friend" who manages to outshine her, ignore or not notice her feelings, and steal the spotlight away from her whenever possible. It actually really makes me angry. The boy that Dimple's parents think is perfect for her (he being super-Indian and all that), the boy that she never thought she would like but actually ends up falling for, is also the boy that her best friend decides to set her sights upon, oblivious to the fact that Dimple still likes him. (Though, to the best friend's credit, Dimple never comes right out and says so, which is both infuriating and completely relate-able; she doesn't think anyone would ever prefer herself to her best friend, so when the boy seems to like the friend [though any non-idiotic reader would see that he likes Dimple], she doesn't speak up for herself, because who wants to put herself on the line like that?)
Anyway. I'm really not liking the best friend in this book. And though the book has its cheesy made-for-immigrant-kids moments, it still has strong imagery and some rather lovely phrasings, not to mention characters that really do jump off the page. I'm thinking Dimple will end up with the boy her parents think is perfect for her. Or at least I hope so. Let's see.
[Interesting aside: Something Borrowed, borrowed from the same friend who lent me Born Confused, also features a protagonist whose best friend has always overshadowed her--and always been allowed to do so. Interesting that my friend called both of these two of her favorite books. I wonder if there's something to the similarity of the characters that speaks to my friend's own personality.]
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