The Taste Of Ginger by Mansi Shah | ARC Review

"It was easy to dwell on the little things when you didn’t think about there being a time when you no longer could.."

From The Blurb : 

In Mansi Shah’s stunning debut novel, a family tragedy beckons a first-generation immigrant to the city of her birth, where she grapples with her family’s past in search of where she truly belongs.

After her parents moved her and her brother to America, Preeti Desai never meant to tear her family apart. All she did was fall in love with a white Christian carnivore instead of a conventional Indian boy. Years later, with her parents not speaking to her and her controversial relationship in tatters, all Preeti has left is her career at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm.

But when Preeti receives word of a terrible accident in the city where she was born, she returns to India, where she’ll have to face her estranged parents…and the complicated past they left behind. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of her heritage, Preeti catches a startling glimpse of her family’s battles with class, tradition, and sacrifice. Torn between two beautifully flawed cultures, Preeti must now untangle what home truly means to her.  

Review : 

This book is a coming-of-age story about a woman torn between two cultures ( Note: I’m not really sure what the age cut-off is for going through a “coming-of age” phase, but if a woman in her thirties no longer qualifies, we can call it a quarter-life crisis instead ). 

The main character, Preeti, is a first-generation immigrant living in Los Angeles. When a family tragedy occurs, she travels back to Ahmedabad, the city of her birth, in India and begins an unexpected journey of reconciling her American upbringing with her Indian heritage. 

The book got me thinking about the concepts of cultural belonging, caste systems, and the experience of first-generation immigrants in a way I haven’t before. The author also did a nice job of exploring the dynamics of Preeti’s family, including their individual choices regarding their identities and the silent sacrifices each of them made to protect each other.

There were a couple things that made this a likeable, not loveable, read for me. 

To be completely honest, Preeti was kind of exhausting. Her behavior often came off as childish and slightly oblivious while she was working through her self-discovery process. For example, she thought her parents were too reliant on what she perceived as outdated and rigid traditions, and she reacted to most situations in a whiny ‘my parents just don’t understand me’ kind of way. And she was adamant about clinging to her American upbringing and defying the cultural norms while in India – valiant in some situations, but it felt like she was often toeing the line to disrespectful and/or reckless behavior.

The writing style didn’t pull me in the way I wanted it to. The character dialogue usually felt very transactional, and it seemed like there was an over-reliance on certain thinking verbs like “mulled over” and “pondered” ( out of curiosity, I counted, and they were used 3 and 9 times, respectively – doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s only a 300-page book and these words were always used in the exact same context ). 

In addition, some of the characters were written as overly simplistic stereotypes ( Jared - the white male law firm partner who yells a lot, has no concept of personal boundaries, and only talks in sports metaphors ), which was a little disappointing. 

Also, given the themes and the location of the story, I went in ( maybe unfairly ) expecting some striking descriptions of the cultural settings. Unfortunately, the book spent exponentially more time on Preeti’s self-reflections rather than trying to draw the reader into the experience of her native country. So if you’re attracted to this book primarily because it’s set in India, you should adjust your expectations appropriately.

Despite my initial lack of love for the main character, Preeti really came through in the end and she did eventually evolve. She had a lot of redeeming moments and breakthroughs ( but it took awhile to get there! ), and the ending of the book was quite satisfying. 

Although this book won’t rank among my favorites, I generally found the story enjoyable, and I thought the author tackled some important themes in an interesting way. It is a solid debut novel, and it’s worth a read if you enjoy stories about family, sacrifice and forgiveness.