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Miss Timmins' School for Girls

by Nayana Currimbhoy (Goodreads Author)

2.92 of 5 stars 2.92 · rating details · 576 ratings · 160 reviews

A murder at a British boarding school in the hills of western India launches a young teacher on the journey of a lifetime

In 1974, three weeks before her twenty-first birthday, Charulata Apte arrives at Miss Timmins' School for Girls in Panchgani. Shy, sheltered, and running from a scandal that disgraced her Brahmin family, Charu finds herself teaching Shakespeare to rich I...more

Paperback, 512 pages

Published June 21st 2011 by Harper Perennial (first published January 1st 2011)

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Jan 13, 2012 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's 1974. Charu has just been hired to teach at Miss Timmins' School for Girls. She is a first-time teacher, nearly as young and impressionable as her students.

Moira Prince also teaches at Miss Timmins'. She is unorthodox, a bit older, worldly, and troubled. Miss Prince, nicknamed Pin, has a mysterious connection with the school's director, and seems to have cast a spell on Charu, who becomes deeply involved with her and the group of bohemians who are her friends.

One night, Pin seems especially...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Zen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

Miss Timmins' School for Girls is a fictional boarding school located amongst the scenic hills and volcanic plateaus of Panchgani (lit. five volcanoes) in the state of Maharashtra, India. What makes Timmins stand out from the other local schools is that it used to be an all-white school for climate-sensitive British girls who couldn't stand the heat. Now, in 1974, it's an exclusive school for rich Indian girls whose families want them to have an authentic British education. It's at the brink of...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Dolly rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of popular fiction

Shelves: 2012, education-school, india, poetry-song-music, religion-philosophy, english, van-noy-book-club, historical-fiction, mystery, fitness-sports, cooking-recipes, relationships, military, scotland-scottish, dance

This book was selected by my local library's book club as its April 2012 read. I read it early so I could return the book quickly; I'm hoping that more people will choose to join our group.

This is a very strange book. It's a mystery wrapped in a veil of social commentary of the 1970s in India. I'm sure it will often get shelved in a lesbian/bisexual category, but I think it's more about love and growing up during those times. I categorize it as historical fiction, although since I grew up in th...more

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Nov 29, 2011 Daisy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Daisy by: on Siria's shelf

Shelves: india, school-boarding, knitters-in-honor-of

3.8 stars. I liked my time spent reading this. It's less a mystery than an atmospheric (for lack of a better word) tale of a world I've never read about before: India, 1974, girls' boarding school. But there are familiar, touching themes as well of daughter/mother, daughter/father relationships, first love, awakening. coming-of-age (though, again, in 1974 India), secrets. Oh, and the rain.

Pretty cover, huh?

Merch held the view that the only reality was fiction. "This includes, of course, movies a...more

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Dec 21, 2011 Sam rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, fiction, historical-fiction, india, asia, kindle, owned, review-copies

India, 1974. Miss Timmins' School for Girls is a throwback from the British colonial days; now Indian parents send their children there for a British style boarding education. Charulata Apte is a new teacher at the school and must find her own path away from the safety of her family home. Just as she starts finding her feet, a teacher she has befriended is murdered and suspicion falls on various members of the community.

This book was much broader in scope than I had anticipated. I expected a who...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Richard Brand rated it 2 of 5 stars

I got tired of this book about page 300 and had another 189 pages to go to finish. It is a mystery story. It is a social development story. It is a coming of age story. It is about a young woman with a birth mark that was born into a "fallen" family in India. It is about a British boarding school for girls in India in the l970's. It is about young girls trying to find love, trying to be accepted, trying to find their place. It probably is trying to be too many things. I also could not tell if it...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Nancy Brisson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Miss Timmins’ School for Girls: A Novel by Nayana Currimbhoy is a little slice of England in the midst of India. We all know that India was once an English colony, at least in the minds of the British and many of us realize that a certain Anglophile strand runs through India culture. So some Indian parents still send their daughters and sons to fairly genuine or genuinely pseudo English boarding schools to get some polish and learn English. This particular school, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls,...more Miss Timmins’ School for Girls: A Novel by Nayana Currimbhoy is a little slice of England in the midst of India. We all know that India was once an English colony, at least in the minds of the British and many of us realize that a certain Anglophile strand runs through India culture. So some Indian parents still send their daughters and sons to fairly genuine or genuinely pseudo English boarding schools to get some polish and learn English. This particular school, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls, is just such a school in an area that is pounded by monsoons during a seemingly endless portion of the school year. The constant drumming on the metal roofs is enough to send the pubescent girls and the lonely female teachers into hormonally driven madness.

There is a lot of humor in this book, but it is very tongue-in-cheek. The excesses of a British girl’s school are described in some detail. “Wardrobe rules were very strict at Timmons’ School for Girls. Each girl’s trunk must contain eight blue-checked knickers, two red-checked knickers, two navy-blue sports knickers, and eight play knickers. The whole army of knickers had to be bloomers, held up with elastic at each leg, not more than six inches above the knee. At home, through every holiday, the tailor sat in our balcony for weeks, patiently threading elastic into the one hundred and twenty knicker legs of each of us three sisters.” One teacher, Miss Manson took it upon herself to inspect the bloomers, which tended to sag after a while, by snapping the elastic under the student’s hem and dealing out detentions to girls with “bad elastic”. Every girl had a rain coat in red, yellow, or blue and throughout the monsoon the girls travelled everywhere in their rain coats and in double crocodile-style lines. This is an image that is certainly designed to inspire humor. Even in India girls seemed to accept this regimen to some extent and only rebelled in some of the same ways girls probably rebelled in the same types of schools in England.

This is not just a “coming of age” story, (these seem very prevalent lately); it is also an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery. Yes there is a murder at the school. We have a heroine, Charulata Apte, who is young and attractive with beautiful long black hair, but who has a “blot” (red mark) on one cheek that is impossible to hide and becomes angry and oozes under certain circumstances which no one has been able to define. Ms. Apte is very young and very innocent and is the child of a father whose life (along with the fortunes of his family) contracted after “an unfortunate incident”. She is teaching the ninth-standard English, English literature (Macbeth in particular), and the British Raj in Indian history. She is also experiencing feelings she never thought to experience. Someone is flirting with her and it is waking her up and bringing lots of excitement into her life. The someone happens to be a fellow teacher, a lesbian named Moira Prince, but this kind of relationship is not so unusual in an all girl’s school where there are only females available and crushes often develop. It is the 70’s and there are American and British “hippies” roaming around India and there is lots of marijuana smoking and even some LSD dropping going on. Given the edgy lifestyle that Charu is living with her crush it is not surprising that she is enjoying the freedoms an alternative lifestyle offers.

Miss Prince, however, is the person who is murdered. She is murdered in a place where usually few people go. She appears to have been pushed off a cliff at the edge of a plateau where the moodier characters hang out. This particular night happens to be the last night of the monsoon. Suddenly the pounding rain stops and a full moon is visible. Who killed Miss Prince? The students decide to become detectives. Nandita, a lead student becomes the lead detective along with her crew, Ramona and Akhila. Another friend Shobha eventually also gets involved and challenges Nandita for the lead position. There is even a list of possible suspects, much as we see in an Agatha Christie novel, but there is no Ms. Marple or Hercule Poirot. Instead we have Merch, The Mystery Man. Apparently, the usually empty table-land was a virtual crossroads on the night “Pin” died. And so, this book becomes a mystery story and only incidentally about “coming of age” or about life at a British girl’s school in India.

The novel was not necessarily funny while I was reading it. However, the humor of the author’s descriptions and some of the girl’s rule-breaking behaviors were quite funny in retrospect. I always love books by India authors and I did enjoy this book very much although it seemed a bit long-winded. The characters are so idiosyncratic and the setting has that isolation that contains the best mysteries. There is even a twist at the end. If you’re after entertainment this could be a good choice. Although there is some speculation about the way our upbringing affects us later in life, it is not pursued with any great depth and it is not really the central point of the story. The secrets families keep until the children are old enough to deal with them are perhaps more germane to this story.
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Apr 13, 2012 Laurie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 52-in-52-2012

A worthwhile read! This book has great depth - much more than I expected. I picked it up while browsing bookstore shelves and it was promoted as a mystery novel and also as a coming of age story. It is both, but to use either description limits this quiet gem. The mystery itself is predictable, and I don't think it is meant to be anything more than a sturdy structure from which to drape the rest of the novel. The narrative is shifting and moody and wonderfully descriptive. The characters - even...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Lynn rated it 2 of 5 stars

this was a "must read" per Amazon - I don't see what all the fuss was about. Started out OK, with the main narrator (Charu)weaving her story of how she went to a school in Western India to be a teacher. Her story started OK (a bit of scandal in her parents' lives; how she tried to fit in at the school being the youngest teacher there; etc). But when she started the lesbian affair, I'm afraid I became a bit squeamish because the story became a bit graphic.

Then, narrator #2, one of the school girl...more

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Oct 29, 2011 Poppy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclubreads

It's a bit unusual for a coming-of-age story set at a boarding school to be about one of the teachers.

The mystery was good - too slow, but good. The coming of age story, not so much. Almost as if she really should have written it as two separate books. I found it hard to care what happened to Charu and much preferred Nandita as a character. The "two stories in one" also made it difficult for Ms. Currimbhoy to give either story its proper due, and the mystery lacks for it. She spent so much time...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Diane Ferbrache rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: india, mystery, glbtq

It's 1974 and Charulata Apte has just arrived at her new home -- a boarding school for girls in a small town in India. Because of some scandal in her father's past and a birthmark (she calls it a "blot") on her face, she is not particularly sought after as a wife. So the job at an boarding school seems like a great idea. She makes friends with some of the teachers, but because she is from a lower caste and not English she is regarded with some disdain by most. Until she is befriended by Pin, a t...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Felice rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A book with a title like Miss Timmons’ School for Girls can go either way. It could turn out to be that the title is completely accurate predictor of the story to come or it could be that the title is a mod writers jest and the book is really about a computer genius by day and a cross-dressing party girl by night who secretly adopts the orphans of a Nepalese village, puts them all through college and then finds love and acceptance with a former policewoman. In this case it's the former and I'm g...more A book with a title like Miss Timmons’ School for Girls can go either way. It could turn out to be that the title is completely accurate predictor of the story to come or it could be that the title is a mod writers jest and the book is really about a computer genius by day and a cross-dressing party girl by night who secretly adopts the orphans of a Nepalese village, puts them all through college and then finds love and acceptance with a former policewoman. In this case it's the former and I'm glad.

Miss Timmons’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy is a coming of age story. The twist to this tale is that it takes place in India in 1974 and also involves a murder. Charulata Apte, not quite twenty-one, is the new teacher at Miss Timmons this term. Charu is a much loved only child from a Brahmin family. She is university educated and longs for a modern life in Bombay. Her parents would rather see her in a prosperous marriage surrounded by children but doubt that this can come about given the 'stain' on Charu's face. Charu and her parents reach a compromise about her immediate future after a scandal puts all of their dreams out of reach. This new plan sends Charu off to teach in a out-of-the-way girl’s boarding school.

The Miss Timmons School started out in 1901 as a boarding school for the young daughters of the British Empire whose health was too delicate for the heat of the plains. Being situated in the western hills, the school offered these ladies a proper British education in a cooler climate. By the time Charu arrives in 1974, the school has been in and out of fashion several times and through a few different incarnations. Back in vogue in the early 1970’s the school still favors a British style education but now the girls are all from good, Christian Indian families.

Shy Charu is not surprisingly dazzled by a free thinking fellow teacher, Moira. Moira is a pot smoker who listens to rock and roll, talks about hippies and embodies all the things that Charu thought living an independent life in Bombay would bring her. Currimbhoy populates the school and it's faculty with more of the same likeable and interesting but somewhat standard types. The rule follower, the gossip, the plotter, the liar, the brain, they are all there and comfortably move the story along.

The dramatic crisis of the novel is a murder that involves the school. Charu is devastated by the loss of a friend and shocked to find herself a suspect in the murder. Given the traditions of Miss Timmons’ School for Girls it isn't likely that a gruesome crime would be allowed to take center stage and it doesn't. This book is not a whodunit. Instead the murder is a catalyst for change and the opportunity for Currimbhoy to bring more of the village into the novel.

The main character in Miss Timmons’ might not be Charu but the weather. The monsoons are a major presence in the novel. Their approach, arrival and passing bracket all the action between the human characters. They have a profound impact in the decision making at the school and in the village. Although the tone of Currinbhoy's novel could not be more different the force of the monsoons on the characters as well as the school's remote location reminded me of the winds and isolation that torment the nuns in Rumer Godden's Black Narcissius.

Miss Timmons’ School for Girls is a pleasant visit to a far away land and time. Nayana Currimbhoy enlivens this old fashioned tale with a contemporary take on the problems of growing up different.
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Jul 07, 2011 kolibri rated it 4 of 5 stars

In 1974 young Charulata Apte is coming to Miss Timmins' to teach English. She is a shy and innocent girl with a birthmark, she calls her 'blot'. One could see it as an indicator of her emotional state, because when Charu is in emotional turmoil it turns red and itchy. Miss Timmins' is a boarding school where Indian parents sent their daughters to get a British education. Charu befriends another young teacher called 'the Prince', a bold and troubled woman, and falls in love. But the Prince is fou...more

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Apr 25, 2011 marymurtz rated it 4 of 5 stars

I expected this book to be a whodunnit set in India in 1974; the description seemed to indicate a boarding-school book set in a time of social upheaval.

What I didn't expect was such an intense and complicated set of characters, the clash of Indian caste culture with British boarding-school rules.

Charu Apte is a Brahmin girl who graduates from college and wants to be a teacher. Her parents reluctantly agree because they know the prospects for her to marry are slim to none, due to a disfiguring...more

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Apr 03, 2011 Ellie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fiction & mystery fans

Shelves: fiction, mystery, 2011ind-chal200bks, first-reads

Miss Timmins School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy.
I loved this book. It's hard to believe it's a debut novel. My worst criticism was that I found it a little long and that it occasionally dragged a bit. On the other hand, I loved it so much, part of me wanted it to last even longer!

The story takes place in a boarding school in India, where upper class girls mix with British missionaries and rock and roll, drugs, and other influences of the time-it is the mid 1970's and the times, well, they tru...more Miss Timmins School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy.
I loved this book. It's hard to believe it's a debut novel. My worst criticism was that I found it a little long and that it occasionally dragged a bit. On the other hand, I loved it so much, part of me wanted it to last even longer!

The story takes place in a boarding school in India, where upper class girls mix with British missionaries and rock and roll, drugs, and other influences of the time-it is the mid 1970's and the times, well, they truly are a-changing.

Our heroine is Charu, a new teacher at Miss Timmins. It's her first job and she is barely older-or more experienced than the girls she is teaching.. She forms a friendship with another teacher with a very different personality and lifestyle. Moira prince has joined the 70s with a vengeance and it is through her that Charu meets the world of hot music and illicit drugs.

And where, Charu is left to wonder, does the Shakespeare she's been hired to teach, fit into this new world?

This book is a beautiful well-written novel. So good a novel, in fact, that I forgot it is a murder mystery. So I was appropriately surprised when in the middle of monsoon season, at night (of course) a teacher is murdered and the carefully ordered life of Miss Timmins oh-so-proper life is thrown into the chaos of the world, a chaos already happening in the rest of the world. The school's careful surface is shattereed and the local town is delighted to jump upon it with gossip and speculation.

It is now that Charu begins both her real adult life and true education. Perhaps too predictably, she becomes a suspectIt's 1974.

The murdered teacher was pushed from the highland known as The Tablelands and there were many potential suspects, each holding their own secrets and motives to murder the victim.

I enjoyed this book as a murder mystery but also as so much more. It was fascinating to read about the India of the 70s with the sudden clash of Indian culture, British imperialism, and the new wave of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll (the 2 last subjects already of prime interest to me). So as a lover of murder mysteries and as a lover of political-sociological studies (especially when presented in compelling fictional form) this book had me hooked.

The characters are well-drawn. Not only are the major characters fascinating but all of the minor ones as well had distinct voices and stories and caught my interest. Currimbhoy is a wonderful writer who takes the murder mystery beyond its genre (as good mysteries do) to examine issues of class and social mores.

And it doesn't hurt that the story takes place in one of my favorite venues-a boarding school. Boarding schools seems to create a world onto their own, full of the intensity of adolescent friendships and angsts and teacher eccentricities. I loved books set in boarding schools when I was a child and adolescent and now, on the other side of life, I love reading them as a teacher.

This is a wonderful book that I recommend not only to lovers of mysteries but to all lovers of fiction and those interested in how world upheavals play out on the smallest scales.

I hope everyone reads this book.(less)

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May 16, 2012 Kanika rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book was
Definitely interesting..
A bit draggy towards the end..

The writing was fluid and consistent..even when the voice shifted from Charu's to Nandini's, the thread was maintained with Macbeth.The shift in voice was also perfectly timed to avoid what would surely have been a prolonged grief reaction that the book might not have sustained.

The love (?) stories were disappointing due to inconsistencies between her relationship with Pin and the character of Pin;her relationship with Pin should...more

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Oct 26, 2011 Broche rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, lgbt, adult

I don't know what made me pick this book up. I don't remember if I saw it advertised somewhere online, or if someone recommended it on Goodreads, or if I just saw it on the new books shelf, but for whatever reason I checked it out of the library and am so glad I did.

This is Nayana Currimbhoy's first novel. Her writing can only be described as lovely, and I look forward to reading more of her work. I'm not a fan of overt similes - X was like Y - and Ms. Currimbhoy is a master of the subtly evocat...more I don't know what made me pick this book up. I don't remember if I saw it advertised somewhere online, or if someone recommended it on Goodreads, or if I just saw it on the new books shelf, but for whatever reason I checked it out of the library and am so glad I did.

This is Nayana Currimbhoy's first novel. Her writing can only be described as lovely, and I look forward to reading more of her work. I'm not a fan of overt similes - X was like Y - and Ms. Currimbhoy is a master of the subtly evocative metaphor.

Told in three parts, Miss Timmins' School for Girls is first and foremost the story of Charulata Apte, a Brahmin Indian girl called Charu for short. At the age of 21 in 1974, Charu makes her first venture out into the world by taking a teaching position at boarding school in Panchgani, one still run "like an outpost of the British Empire". Class structure is very much at play, and shy, timid, only-child Charu is slowly, almost delicately, drawn out of herself when she unwillingly befriends Miss Moira Prince, a prickly, insubordinate, unexpectedly charming White teacher. Through Pin, as Charu calls her, Charu is introduced to the charms of the 70s - the Mystery Man known as Merch (a friend of Pin's), and with him, the music, the drugs, the politics, the independence. Touched by new ideas, new feelings, new experiences, Charu nonetheless feels safe inside her Panchgani/Timmins' School bubble, where the outside world never really intrudes.

Until a murder occurs. Until her mother is hospitalized.

Suddenly the perspective changes, and the story continues from the perspective of Nandita, one of Charu's top students, and Nandita's friends, who had snuck away to the place known as table-top on the night of the murder. With Macbeth and Gothic romances and contemporary detective novels as their guides, Nandita, Akhila, Ramona, and Shoba attempt to put together the pieces of that night. Miss Nelson, the school principal, was seen on table-top. So was Charu. So was Merch. So were some boys from another local school, Mr. Blind Irani, and enough people so that it seemed like half the school and town were out that night, the night there was a full moon and the rain stopped in the middle of the monsoon season. False accusations, false arrests, family connections and secrets and revelations, for a brief moment Timmins' School and all of Panchgani are national news in a huge game of who-dunnit.

Perspective changes again and it is now several years later. Charu has gone to Bombay, to become a teacher there. No longer provincial, living with her father and her child, life has moved on in so many ways, but she has never forgotten. A chance meeting with an old student brings it all rushing back, all the same feelings of first love, second love, guilt, confusion, frustration - and under it all, still a lingering question about what really happened the night of the murder. A trip back to Panchgani is needed to once-and-for-all discover the truth about that night up at table-top and how those events formed who Charu came to be.

The publisher's marketing calls this book "ultimately, a coming-of-age tale set against the turbulence of the 1970s as it played out in one small corner of India," but it's so much more than that. Reading this book was almost like traveling to India, with words and phrases and actions and castes and socio-cultural elements sprinkled throughout the prose. Though there is a glossary in the back of the book, I preferred not to use it, instead immersing myself in this place I had never been, letting the unfamiliar words wash over me while I sympathized with the budding womanhood of Charu's experiences. A true sensory pleasure.(less)

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Jun 20, 2011 Lydia Presley rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, fiction, india, mystery

Let me just say that last year I may have overdosed a bit on books set in India. Some were good, some were bad, but overall they seemed to have the same melancholy, morose feel to them and I promised myself I'd lay off of them for a while.

Then I signed up for this tour. My first thought was, great, here we go again, but then I picked up the book and started reading and realized this was unlike any story set in India I'd read thus far.

The story of Charu was interesting enough - but add into the m...more

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May 13, 2011 Elizabeth B rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was so thrilled to receive this book as it encompassed all of the things I love most in novels: far flung locales, a hint of mystery, a splash of romance. And while the book did have all these things, it did not leave me with the immersive experience I had hope for. Take as a whole, the book could have been epic in proportion. So many plotlines and characters could have meshed together to make a novel of “Historian” type proportions. However, the novel was either cut down in editing or the aut...more

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May 01, 2011 Kae Cheatham rated it 3 of 5 stars

I requested the ARC for Miss Timmins School for Girls after reading the overview at Net Galley.

I was immediately drawn in by Nayana Currimbhoy's use of language and smooth writing. The 1974 setting in a small mountain town in India is unique and well drawn. Much of the story takes place during the monsoon season, and I could feel the perpetual dampness and visualize the land shrouded in mist and heavy squalls.

The fictional Miss Timmins' School for Girls is in this town--a British missionary boar

...more

I requested the ARC for Miss Timmins School for Girls after reading the overview at Net Galley.

The fictional Miss Timmins' School for Girls is in this town--a British missionary boarding school--run much as it has been since the turn of the 20th Century. Well-to-do Indian families send their daughters here to learn English and western ways. Charu Apte goes there to teach, and it is her story that runs through the novel; her story and the secrets and attitudes of the boarding school. Not long after monsoon season begins, one of the English teachers is found dead at the bottom of a cliff. Police suspect murder. Charu was friends with the woman.

This is intriguing. This could be riveting, but for me, it was not. The story was too distended with character descriptions of even the most humble of the large cast of characters. Paragraphs and anecdotes, while nicely told, often diluted an emotional scene, and I often had to tab back several pages to recall the main thrust of a scene.

The story is told from three points of view, but each of them is written as first person. There's Merch, in the prologue, then Charu Apte, then one of the students, Nandita, then Apte again. Unfortunately, there was no variance in the tone and style of the first person writing.

Most of the story is from Apte's point of view, and she is and interesting character; just the story of her family could have made a book in itself. Through Charu, the expectations of India's many social strata are shown, good and bad. Continual reference is made to a woman's role, the importance of marriage and how this determines a woman's place in the family. Her father has secrets, her mother becomes ill, her mother's family is at times exasperating and at others humorous. Some of the best scenes deal with Charu's family.

Yet, had I borrowed this book from my Public Library, I doubt I would have finished it. Too many passages went on too long, and I quickly realized many of them were unnecessary to the overall story. What kept me reading was knowing this was an ARC—actually and "Uncorrected e-Proof." I hope a sincere editor has worked to smooth this into a more contained story that will show off Nayana Currimbhoy's obvious talent.

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Jun 18, 2011 Cathe Olson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Young, innocent Charu gets a job as a teacher at a Christian boarding school in India. She is shy and self-conscious about the large "blot" on her face. She ends up in a lesbian affair with another teacher--but after an argument one night--her lover is murdered and Charu becomes one of the suspects.

This book had an intriguing premise and lots of interesting tidbits about life in India, but somehow it didn't quite work. The book was way too long and dragged in many places; there were too many cha...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Kay rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

The writing in this novel with a mystery at its core is lyrical, and the exotic setting--1970's India--is intriguing. While I felt the novel went on a bit too long (491 pages is a long time to sustain interest in a story with an ambiguous ending), it was well worth reading. I hadn't realized that the recreational drug craze that typified the 70's hippie culture in the West also extended to remote regions of the east. I have trouble empathizing with some of the characters in the book, especially...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Cindi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Charu, a young, naive woman becomes a teacher at a girls boarding school high in the mountains of India. She is seduced by another teacher and becomes entangled in a romantic liaison. Charu is caught firmly in the web when the other teacher is murdered.

I nearly stopped reading Miss Timmin's School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy after the first 125 pages. In fact, I put it aside and read another book before picking it back up and finishing the novel. While the background information in the first...more

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Jul 09, 2011 Tamara Herrera rated it 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up expecting a coming-of-age story set in a boarding school in India during the 1970s. Somehow I missed the blub stating that the backdrop is the murder of a teacher -- but I really enjoyed this mystery element. The novel is full of atmosphere (can really "feel" the rain throughout the story) and characters. By the end, I thought there were too many characters and that the story could have been told in less than 500 pages, though. I was also thrown a bit by the alternating nar...more

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Jan 07, 2013 Lynn G. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2013, asian-indian

Miss Timmins' School for Girls: A Novel tells the story of Miss Charulata Apte's short time as a teacher at an all-girl boarding school in India during the monsoon season of 1974. Living the life of the typical daughter in a highly patriarchal and very class-oriented society, Charu's life has been circumscribed by the strict rules of class, the secret and shameful past of her parents, and the deforming birth mark on her face. Her position as a teacher is Charu's first step towards independence a...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Sally rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: lesbian

Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is a rather bland title for a book, with a cover photo of girls walking in the rain that seems as if it could have been taken anywhere. There’s something quite beautiful about the colours, though, and the suggestively ethnic design of the border provides our first hint of how deceptive and artificial that portrayal of ordinariness really is.

Right from the very first page we’re teased with the central mystery, and introduced in such a way that we’re immediately susp...more Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is a rather bland title for a book, with a cover photo of girls walking in the rain that seems as if it could have been taken anywhere. There’s something quite beautiful about the colours, though, and the suggestively ethnic design of the border provides our first hint of how deceptive and artificial that portrayal of ordinariness really is.

Right from the very first page we’re teased with the central mystery, and introduced in such a way that we’re immediately suspicious of the various narrators. With a teacher’s body discovered beneath a rain-swept cliff, another teacher already fleeing a scandal back home, a group of teachers too liberated to set a proper example, a story of taboo love, and a few overly curious students, the stage is set for a literary journey across the world and back in time.

For me, this was a bit of a difficult read, only because the culture (and its associated struggles) is so very foreign. There is a strong contrast between cultures, religions, and classes that is revisited throughout the story. At times, I found my fascination with the characters and their surroundings actually pulled me out of the story, forcing me to go back and reread certain passages to regain the thread of the plot. The fact that the plot seemed a bit disjointed at times likely didn’t help, but that’s not a complaint, just an observation.

I must say, the language here is lush and beautiful, almost lyrical at times. The narrative voices are very strong, authoritative, and entertaining, and yet never entirely trustworthy. Some voices had more impact than others, but it’s a style of writing that suits the mystery element very well (even if it detracts, a bit, from the cultural elements). While the main characters were very well developed, the supporting cast ran the gamut from generic to fascinating, with some existing only to advance the plot. I would have liked to see either a few less characters, or a little more time spent developing them, but that’s a minor point.

In the end, it’s the strength of Charu that carries the novel, and her development – both socially and emotionally – that kept me reading. Her story alone could have made for an interesting novel, serving as part travelogue and part romantic drama. At the same time, the mystery could very well stand alone as a much shorter novel, and might even benefit from the added focus. Somehow, though, it’s the mingling of the story lines and the genres that appealed to me most, almost (and perhaps intentionally) mirroring the mingling of cultures and classes.

All in all, an interesting read, and one that’s very well told.(less)

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Dec 31, 2011 Dana rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No one. I don't want anyone wasting time because of me.

Shelves: detective-fictions, indian, girls-women, love, thriller, young-adult, wanna-unread

Well, I hated the book. The author's prose sucked damn. It was supposed to be a thriller but I couldn't even find a single part that nailed me to ma seat. The end was stupid and flared ma anger. Why did she waste all the pages on the third part if the end was supposed to be THAT? And seriously lesbianism, drugs and school-teacher secrets...not exactly what I like to read; I find these boring. My bad, I shouldn't have read it in the first place. I don't know if it was the blurb or the title, but...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Ariel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

This book was similar in a way to a book I just read, In Search of the Rose Notes. Both were coming of age type stories set against the back drop of a mystery. In this case the book takes place in India in the 1970's. As another reviewer noted the book tends to drag on. The characters engaged in a lot of behavior I could not relate to and I was disengaged from them, not really caring what their fate was. I also did not care for the ambiguous ending. After sticking this book out for five hundred...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Michelle added it · review of another edition

Miss Timmins' School for Girls is quite misleading. I was expecting an interesting coming-of-age story that just happens to take place in India. Instead, I found a complex novel of which a personal journey of discovery is only one small part of the overall plot. There is murder, love, intrigue, family secrets, and the ties that bind it all together. Combined with the always-fascinating backdrop of India, the result is an intriguing and seductive novel about the damage secrets can do to others an...more Miss Timmins' School for Girls is quite misleading. I was expecting an interesting coming-of-age story that just happens to take place in India. Instead, I found a complex novel of which a personal journey of discovery is only one small part of the overall plot. There is murder, love, intrigue, family secrets, and the ties that bind it all together. Combined with the always-fascinating backdrop of India, the result is an intriguing and seductive novel about the damage secrets can do to others and to oneself.

Charu Apte is not your typical heroine. She has big dreams but has been hampered by her birthmark, a prominent blot on her face. As a coping mechanism, she has always turned inward and stamped out any initiative in an effort to remain anonymous and invisible. She has always found it far easier to suffer in silence than to draw attention to herself. The reader gets a glimpse that things are changing for Charu with her initial position as a teacher at the British-run Miss Timmins' School For Girls. As a teacher, she can no longer hide in the shadows but rather is forced to take a stand in order to maintain control of her classroom. This is only one of many changes for Charu as she discovers love, her purpose, and her voice.

Love is a huge theme in Miss Timmins' School for Girls. Romantic love, platonic love, familial love, self-love - they drive the characters' actions and cause them to make choices that may seem surprising or unusual. Charu is the biggest recipient of these various forces as she is compelled to delineate between the various kinds of love, compartmentalize them and face the consequences of her actions, yet everyone is driven by this key factor. The main actions in the novel are a direct result of choosing one type of love over another and puts these forces into perspective for the reader.

One cannot discuss this novel without highlighting the prominent influence the setting plays in the novel. When it comes to directing the characters' actions, the setting becomes a character unto itself, as characters feel forced to act a certain way because of caste, societal influences, or even due to geography. Set in the 1970s, the prominence of drugs also plays a factor as it prevents Charu from immediate action but allows her to push aside key decisions for momentary distractions and peace. While the prevalence of drugs could have been overdone, quickly becoming cliched, Ms. Chirrumbhoy uses the drug scene to highlight the changing culture and growing awareness and deliberate ignorance of the restrictions of the caste system.

In Miss Timmins' School for Girls, Nayana Chirrumbhoy presents a fascinating study of culture in flux. British influence clashes with the caste system, which clashes with the emerging hippie/beatnik culture. At the same time, the cast of characters must maneuver their way through this evolving culture and changing social mores; Charu is just the main character to traverse this slippery trail. Ms. Chirrumbhoy wisely allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about certain plot points, thereby enhancing the reader's involvement and engagement in the story. Not to be read slowly, Miss Timmins' School for Girls rewards patient and careful readers with a complex snapshot in time of a young woman coming of age ad experiencing the conflicting pulls of the different types of love in a wildly evolving society

Thank you to NetGalley for my e-galley!(less)

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Nov 15, 2011 Heidi Gonzalez rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had mixed feelings about this book. I really liked it in the beginning but really struggled with it in the end. I'm not sure if this was due to the fact that my school term is ending and I have a bunch of other reading to do and papers to write or if it just fell flat at the end. Coming of age story has been tossed around a few times in relation to this book but I'm not sure if that's accurate. Its more of a film noire in book form. The young innocent teacher discovers more about the world and...more

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“It's the standard-issue Indian male syndrome. Mothers and sisters on a pedestal on the one hand, and loose women and prostitutes below the boot on the other. And me, a good Marathi girl like his sisters, consorting with all of you wastrels and worse. Too confusing for him.” — 1 person liked it

“I really knew nothing about the dancing habits of the Scottish. But I wanted to help. "I could teach them Indian folk dances," I offered, scrounging my mind for school dances in gaudy garments.

"Well, I'm not sure that they would be complex enough for competitions," she said. Pursing her lips, she blushed a dark, deep red. I knew I had said something wrong, but it took me a few days to understand the reason for Miss Manson's disapproval and discomfort. She blushed a beetroot red because I had unwittingly questioned the core belief of the school: British was Better.” — 1 person liked it

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