[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]

read for bookclub, i started this one with trepidation: yet another war book. ho hum. but it grew on me. the characters start off unlikeable but then slowly bring you 'round. i especially like how the author allowed the story to deepen by introducing new narrators that were integral to the plot (as opposed to having all of them narrate sections right from the beginning). although there were only 4 points of view - easy for a reader to keep track of - each new narrator wasn't introduced until our curiosity about him/her was sufficient.

i had never linked my war reading to the partition of India before, yet this concept seemed obvious once this book connected the dots for me. historical fiction really does a great job identifying all those filaments in a way that straightforward timelines just can't do.

the ending was unsatisfactory, but i've come to see that most endings are. we are still living history, after all. no outcome will ever satisfy all of us.