Tara Rose

The author's greatest achievement, in my opinion, is in keeping a taut narrative tension throughout the book that keeps your attention. She uses present tense prose to do this. The characters feel real. It is an account of the life of an immigrant family who visit their relatives now and then and whose children grow up well, go to Ivy League colleges and get respectable careers. You follow along with great detail the mundane events of their daily lives. You do gain insight into the immigrant experience for highly educated, Bengali people, and the cultural challenges they face, especially across the generations. I don't think any character is particularly vivid or colorful or memorable, nor is any event. Yet, it is very satisfying to read somehow. Their pleasant meals are greatly detailed, which made my mouth water. I read it cover to cover and I enjoyed it. I really did!