Okay, so usually if I don't really enjoy a book in a book tour, I don't blog about it (maybe leave a comment on Goodreads), as the whole point of book tours is to promote a book. I simply choose to not comment on it. But this is quite a tricky book and even though I didn't enjoy it, I know I had to share my thoughts. The reason being: I felt a bit offended as an Indian and a Delhiite.
The Marvelous Mirze Girls is a story written by Sheba Karim about an 18-years old second-generation American Muslim girl, who after losing her Aunt, came to India to heal and rediscover her passion for writing.
Let's talk about a few positives of the book. It had a good historic description of Mughals and Muslim heritage. Although I am from Delhi, even I didn't knew about some of the facts. I enjoyed the journey through Delhi and the monumental places. I reminisced about the time, I first visited these places when I was a kid. Ahh, that was a great feeling.
I also enjoyed the way Sheba has described Noreen's grief of losing her Aunt and her emotionally complex relationship with her father.
Another thing I enjoyed was the aptness of social norms and toxic societal behavior towards women by the judgy aunties of India. Even though Adi was living in the US and was the first generation, he still had to face the issue of coming out. That was fitting to how Indian society works.
Now, coming to the things that made me give it a 2-star rating and write a negative review.
The book felt more about ranting Noreen's bad experience living in India, than anything else. Throughout the book, the author just kept on highlighting the 1000 things that's wrong with Delhi/India.
The top-most issue highlighted throughout the book is Delhi's pollution. I mean I get that the pollution levels, especially during winters are high (because of the fog during the cold winter), but to highlight the AQI as the header for each chapter??? It didn't feel relevant at all. Noreen also mentioned that aunties told her that foreigners exaggerate the pollution. But understand one thing, people who live in a place are used to that place. I was born and bought up in Delhi, and hey I am not yet dead because of the "Alarming pollution levels". And don't even get me started on her mention of the Sri-Lankan cricket match mention. What does the author wanted to convey through this constant ranting of pollution level, is beyond my understanding?
The author also talks about how bad is Air India Airlines. I have traveled through them multiple times, and I have also traveled with other 'International' airlines, and haven't seen any difference. She mentioned the armrest was taped using normal tape and the engines made noises even before the journey started. I mean questioning the complete airlines so directly was not good. The unnecessary claims that again didn't felt relevant to the story unless her main propaganda is to defame the country by providing unnecessary wrong facts.
The author went so far ahead with highlighting the issues about India, that she even mentioned that Indian condoms aren't good. So Ruby packed multiple boxes from home. Talking about condoms, Noreen mentioned how back in the US, she would wait till her (by her she meant the girls from the US) bf is asleep, so she can pee. But in India, it's impossible to stay a barbie doll after 2 plates of rajma. So basically all Indian girls just goes around farting on their boyfriend's faces. Wow.!
She even outright said this about India:
The water was poison, the Air was poison, and the men were poison.
There was also this weird relationship between Noreen and Ruby. Even though the author was trying to display a cool open-minded relationship between the mother and the daughter, it felt way too weird even for western culture. She openly smoke joints and asked her daughter's boyfriend to make a joint for her. Her daughter was constantly present when the adults had their joint party. She even suggested Noreen to invite her bf for the night and sleep together, while giving her condoms (which is fine) and lubricant (weird). All the while, she was in another room with her bf. The next day, all 4 of them were making breakfast. Too weird.!
Throughout the book, I tried to be positive (as I am usually not the one who gets offended that easily), but the author made it impossible to do so. She constantly highlighted unnecessary things, and I felt I just need to slam the book shut. I still read on as I was hoping all this ranting would lead to something. But unfortunately, the story itself felt so flat. There's not much going on. She started strong with the whole brown girl going around in Delhi with a cute guy (and yet a little too old for her), trying to find her passion to write again. The slight inclusion of Jinn made it look like the book is promising, but then a little too many things started happening. The #MeToo Movement, the casteism issue (which is not what she made it sound), behavior towards North Indians, and whatnot. She explored too many topics and didn't focus on any one of them properly.
All the issues highlighted by the MC about Delhi and India felt more like a whiney foreigner who just can't adjust to the place. It would still have been fine if Noreen was forced to leave her country and come all the way to India. But the story was based on her own decision to come to India, to heal herself from the pain left by her Aunt's untimely demise. And if it was her decision, then hating everything about the country didn't seem right even on a story-telling POV.
Honestly, I didn't like the book at all and felt being targeted as an Indian. It's sad that the author herself is a brown girl and yet she portrayed the picture of her country in such a negative light. Even if some points are true, highlighting only the negatives of a country as an author might damage the whole image of a country since the book is read by millions of people out there and for many of them, this is the only way to understand the country and culture.
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