TITLE : GIRL IN WHITE COTTON
AUTHOR : AVNI DOSHI
LENGTH: 297
PUBLICATIONS: 4TH ESTATE BOOKS (IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINS BOOKS)
GENRE: CONTEMPORARY
SYNOPSIS:
Antara has never understood her mother Tara's decisions - walking out on her marriage to follow a guru, living on the streets like a beggar, shacking up with an unknown artist, rebelling against society's expectations ... But when Tara starts losing her memory, Antara searches for a way to make peace with their shared past, a past that haunts them both. As she relives her childhood in Pune in the eighties, Catholic boarding school in the hills of Maharashtra, and her years as a young artist in Bombay, Antara comes up against her own fears and neuroses, realizing she might not be so different from Tara after all. Girl in White Cotton is a journey into shifting memories, altering identities and the subjective nature of truth. Tracing the fragile line between familial devotion and deception, Avni Doshi's mesmerizing first novel will surprise and unsettle you.(sic)
OVERVIEW/ MY OPINION :
Girl in white cotton by avni doshi is a contemporary novel revolving around the life of Antara and her mother who is recently diagnosed with a disease that causes her to forget things about her life and dive into completely different worlds. But amidst it all they both have a very rough and a dark past that they are hiding from the world. Pick this up to find put how antaras quest to help her mother improve her health compels her to unravel their past and open up about her, witness a strange journey of Antara from fighting her battles and keeping up with the demons of their horrific and bizarre past, in this book.
I had a strange time surfing through this story,
The concept was very fresh and well executed.
The writing style was good and descriptive.
The narration is commendable, the story is narrated from antaras perspective, it also gives the reader a feel of reading a kind of a psychological novel, this is very rare and I hardly find this adaptation done by debut authors.
The plot was a mixture of flashback, parallel and chronological. The author still managed to keep a good hold over it.
The storyline was a mixture of themes related to family ties, societal pressure, superstitions, tennage problems, strangled relationships and a lot more. It's hard to believe that it's a debut novel.
The cover is beautiful and the title is pretty innovative.
The characterization is amazing, antaras character is very well developed, though I couldn't connect with her due to her strange ideologies I did sympathise for her most of the time and even hated her at times, it's very rare that you hate a character and still marvel over the magic of its characterization. A good information over Tara and Dilips character is provided in the story.
Talking about the storys pace, it's pretty slow paced however towards the end some scenes were quite sudden and rushed.
If you ask me to summarise this story in 1 word I'd say it's "HAUNTING" it's actually a story that will haunt you even after you've finished it.
I'd recommend this book if you like reading books based on the above mentioned themes.
MY RATING : 4/5
Special thanks to @harpercollinsin for sending across a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Views expressed in this post are solely my own, no part of this review, image, video, post shall be copied/ used for any other purpose without the permission of its owner.
