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The Girl in the Garden

by Kamala Nair (Goodreads Author)

3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 · rating details · 1,076 ratings · 262 reviews

The redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time, where she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret.

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published June 15th 2011 by Grand Central Publishing (first published January 1st 2011)

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Lists with This Book

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164th out of 377 books — 922 voters

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34th out of 59 books — 38 voters

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Jan 06, 2011 Laura de Leon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley, nook, fiction, review-copy, blog-scheduled

This is a beautiful, thoughtful story that occasionally nudges towards melodrama, but never quite gets there.

Kamala Nair follows in the footsteps of Jhumpa Lahiri with this beautifully written story of the child of Indian immigrants, but she also shows other influences-- I loved the echoes of The Secret Garden.

The book begins with a letter from the adult Rakhee to her fiance. For the reader, it simply sets up questions. There aren't many answers for her fiance either.

The story really gets starte...more This is a beautiful, thoughtful story that occasionally nudges towards melodrama, but never quite gets there.

Kamala Nair follows in the footsteps of Jhumpa Lahiri with this beautifully written story of the child of Indian immigrants, but she also shows other influences-- I loved the echoes of The Secret Garden.

The book begins with a letter from the adult Rakhee to her fiance. For the reader, it simply sets up questions. There aren't many answers for her fiance either.

The story really gets started with the second chapter. Rakhee remembers back to a key time in her childhood. She is in 5th grade in Plainfield, Minnesota, where she doesn't quite fit in with her classmates. Again, this section is largely setup, but it is already building a compelling picture of her life, of who her parents are, and how that has shaped who she is.

Then, as Rakhee and her mother arrive in India, a whole knew world is introduced. This was a different view of India than I've seen before, a more rural India. The challenges Rakhee faces are both familiar (dealing with a grandmother she remembers meeting before, but who has aged badly since then) and the exotic(stories of a monster from Indian folklore that lives in the forest and must be avoided).

Rakhee is quickly drawn into the tangled affairs of her family, issues she is too young to deal with, and that her mother makes a small effort to hide from her.

The story is narrated by an adult Rakhee telling the story of her younger self, so the viewpoint is an interesting mix of the naivete of the child, with occasional insight from the adult Rakhee.

As the summer goes on, Rakhee discovers the secret in the garden in the forest, and much later the secret behind the secret in the garden. Her aunts and cousins face life altering decisions, as does her mother, and eventually Rakhee herself.

As I referred to in the beginning, this tangled web of problems sometimes brushes against the edge of believable, looking like it might head towards the ridiculous. It isn't any one person or situation, but the combination of them. The Girl in the Garden doesn't cross that line, probably due to the strength of the writing and the characters.
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Jun 27, 2011 Michelle added it

The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair is another fascinating look into the Indian culture. With its hidden secrets, dark pasts,and fanciful setting, the story has all the trappings of a fairy tale. The lines between reality and fantasy blur slightly as Ms. Nair weaves her story of family and love through the mystical setting of India.

As its main character, Rahkee is both strong, independent, surprisingly fragile and utterly sympathetic. Her fragility is surprising, as is her sympathetic nature b...more The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair is another fascinating look into the Indian culture. With its hidden secrets, dark pasts,and fanciful setting, the story has all the trappings of a fairy tale. The lines between reality and fantasy blur slightly as Ms. Nair weaves her story of family and love through the mystical setting of India.

As its main character, Rahkee is both strong, independent, surprisingly fragile and utterly sympathetic. Her fragility is surprising, as is her sympathetic nature because that is not how she is portrayed as the story opens. Rather, she is the heartless fiancee of an unknown man who runs away in the dark of night in order to find closure with her past. This supposed heartlessness gradually becomes pain and anguish as the reader gets to know Rahkee and how her summer in India frames the beginning of the novel.

Like all good fairy tale heroines, Rahkee must do battle with her family's tormentors and break down the walls, both figurative and literal, that prevent her entire family from experiencing true happiness. She does this with a fierceness that contradicts her initial indecision and flight, especially as she maintains her child-like innocence and sense of wonder through the retelling of the story. As Rahkee begins to fight for answers and the truth while standing up to generational, cultural, and physical barriers, she becomes the heroine and knight in shining armor all in one.

The Girl in the Garden gets some of its more fanciful elements from the Indian backdrop. The peacock roaming the garden, Ayurvedic practices healing terminally ill patients, the colorful saris, the bounteous food, the lush forests, the rules and requirements of Indian society - these all describe a world completely foreign to most Western readers. The unfamiliarity of these elements blurs the edges between fantasy and reality and enhances the fairy tale feel.

For all of its breathtaking descriptions, The Girl in the Garden is ultimately the story of the power of love and its redemptive as well as its destructive powers over entire generations. Utterly absorbing, the reader is drawn into the story from the opening lines, while the vibrant setting and well-structured narration fully immerses the reader into this spellbinding story.

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

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Mar 27, 2013 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is structured as a story within a story. In the inner story, as a young girl Rahkee is taken away from her father and her home in the Midwest for a summer visit to her mother’s home in India. Being more adventurous and less superstitious than her cousins, during the course of the summer she unravels some of the family’s secrets that have led to their undoing. Both her grandfather and her mother’s generation have concealed secrets in a way that turned out to be destructive. What is not...more

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Dec 27, 2011 Christina (Reading Thru The Night) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, fairy-tale-ish

The Short of It

Fairy tales, truthfully, aren’t always happy.

The Long of It

Rakhee is an engaged woman still haunted by the secrets of her family’s past. After receiving a letter from India, Rakhee realizes she must return to her family’s country and confront her legacy.

Through a memory written down for her fiancé to read, we discover what happened that one summer when Rakhee stumbled upon the hidden garden and the girl imprisoned there.

The Thoughts about It

I had no idea what to expect before pic...more

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Oct 23, 2011 CoffeeBook Chick rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is always a pleasant surprise to settle down with a book that you think could be a good story, and to be rewarded as a reader for the very faith that you presented it with.

While The Girl in the Garden begins with Rakhee immediately traveling for the second time in her life to India from America, leaving behind the ring her future husband gave her, the rest of the book is a flashback to one summer when Rakhee was only eleven-years-old. It was the very first time she had ever visited India with...more It is always a pleasant surprise to settle down with a book that you think could be a good story, and to be rewarded as a reader for the very faith that you presented it with.

While The Girl in the Garden begins with Rakhee immediately traveling for the second time in her life to India from America, leaving behind the ring her future husband gave her, the rest of the book is a flashback to one summer when Rakhee was only eleven-years-old. It was the very first time she had ever visited India with her mother, which was also the first time she met her extended family. It is a summer of secrets and betrayal. Families do come with burdens and unspoken truths, but the ones Rakhee learns in that one summer are more than she could ever have dreamed of. Or feared. But it is something that she must resolve before she can get married.

Rakhee is eleven who has lived her whole life in Minnesota. While her parents love her and provide a good home, Rakhee doesn't "fit" with her classmates and is never included in anything. She may have her mother and her father, and a devoted dog named Merlin, but she doesn't have any friends.

Her mother, a beautiful and sad woman, receives a curious letter in the mail, stamped with overseas postage. The contents of the letter aren't shared with Rakhee, but she is forced to fly to India with her mother for the summer. Once arriving in humid and hectic India, Rakhee again finds herself uncomfortable - she doesn't fit here either, at least at first. Settling into the routines of life in a foreign land, Rakhee's cousins are there to help her along, and provide her the very thing she's been craving - friendship.

But this is so much more than simply a story about family - there is a secret behind the house in which her mother grew up. A secret of evil that her cousins have always been warned about. Children tend to be curious and defy the orders of their parents, but Rakhee's cousins have never done so - they've been told they shouldn't go over the wall that separates their house from this evil, and so they haven't. But with bravado, innocence, or by accident, Rakhee finds herself over the wall and curiously walking through the woods. What she finds there becomes magical, or real, but ultimately becomes the summer that seals all of their fates and reveals the truth behind the secrets that her mother's family have always kept.

At once beautiful and strong, Kamala Nair delivers a story in which the very beauty of it is layered in its web of characters, culture, and secrets amidst the oppressive heat of India. There is almost a lyrical sound to the words on the page, and many times I found myself reading aloud, to see if I could capture the music. I love it when a book makes me do that. I felt the humidity of India, and especially young Rakhee's confusion as the lies of her family swirled around her, and I also could easily feel the injustice and frustration of being young and always being told that you're just not old enough to know the truth. Such a helpless feeling. But will finding the answer to a years kept secret ever make you feel better?

There is nothing but surprise when each secret is revealed. I held my breath as it unfolded.

I look forward to more from Kamala Nair. Fans of Lisa See, who enjoy cultural ties in fiction, will enjoy this book. Throw in the mystery behind it all, and you've also got a good one for your book club.(less)

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Sep 30, 2011 Paulamoney rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: celia

Recommended to Paulamoney by: my daughter and Terry Gross (NPR)

Her parents DO love her but poor bespectled short Rakhee Singh is lonely! All her blue eyed blond school mates exclude her from play. Her brilliant father, a physician, is so involved with his work that he barely has time for her. Her clinically depressed mother just doesn't have the capacity to care for her daughter except in a very peripheral way.

A trip from MN to her parents' native southern India the summer she is 10, turning 11, introduces her to at least a few cousins she can bond with.

Sh...more

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Sep 30, 2011 Sue rated it 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this book. It drew me in from the very first page - a translation of the beautiful poem "Mirabai". A poem that reminded me of the parts I loved of the Omar Khayyam. The book is the story of American born Rakhee, who is suddenly transported back to India for the summer by her mother, Amma, the year that she is eleven. She is looking back on that pivotal summer, and trying to understand its effects, as she becomes engaged to marry.

Amma's family home is in the South of India in K...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature-fiction

Rakhee Singh is about to graduate with a master’s degree from Yale School of Architecture and then begin what she hopes will be a promising career at a design firm in New York. She is also engaged to be married, but this night she is on an airplane back to India. She left her boyfriend the diamond engagement ring and the written story of why she was leaving without saying a word to him. Rakhee, in her note that was attached to story, said she couldn’t marry him until she unbound “…the demons tha...more Rakhee Singh is about to graduate with a master’s degree from Yale School of Architecture and then begin what she hopes will be a promising career at a design firm in New York. She is also engaged to be married, but this night she is on an airplane back to India. She left her boyfriend the diamond engagement ring and the written story of why she was leaving without saying a word to him. Rakhee, in her note that was attached to story, said she couldn’t marry him until she unbound “…the demons that were under her bed” and that she could not marry him until she had “banished them.” She signed the note, left her address in India and hoped he would understand.

You see, Rakhee had pretty much led him to believe that she’d only ever been in Plainfield, Minnesota where she grew up. He had no idea whatsoever that Rakhee had spent an entire summer when she was 10 years old in Kerala-Malanad, India. Malanad was a rural village in Kerala, located at the southernmost tip of India. What occurred that summer kept me bound to the pages like a duck on water until I was done. Even though my copy is the large print version, I read all 477 pages in one sitting with only short breaks for tea!

The story that emerged the summer Rakhee was 10 will stay with me forever! I adored Rakhee, such a caring, intelligent and extremely caring and understanding girl for her age. I loved the other characters just as much, especially Tulasi and Krishna. This story reminded me so much of Rohinton Mistry’s ‘A Fine Balance’, which I also thoroughly enjoyed.

The writing in “The Girl In The Garden” was brilliant, intelligent, fluid and flowed beautifully like a stone being tossed upon the water and watching the concentric circles of water teaming out one after the other. “The Girl In The Garden” could be a best book of 2011 and in my opinion, ranks right up there with ‘The Help’ and ‘The Kitchen House’. This is an unbelievable accomplishment for a “debut” novel!! Kamala Nair writes with the passion and talent of a well-seasoned author.

Thank you Kamala Nair for one of the most beautiful and entertaining stories I’ve read this year!!
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Sep 02, 2011 Alayne Bushey rated it 3 of 5 stars

For most of her life Rakhee has locked away a summer of her childhood spent in the hot, dry climate of India. Having harbored this secret from her fiance, The Girl in the Garden is Rakhee’s letter to him as she leaves to confront her past and the lives that intertwine with her own back in India. Deep in the forest behind her ancestral home, a garden with a dark mystery lies shrouded under a canopy of foliage. We are transported to Rakhee’s childhood and the summer she discovered the garden in Ka...more

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Aug 06, 2011 AudioBookFans rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally posted at http://www.audiobookfans.com

My Review: I love when audiobooks surprise me, and The Girl in the Garden definitely did. Kamala Nair’s debut novel follows the dark family history of Rakhee Singh. The story begins as Rakhee removes her engagement ring and starts to write to her fiancee. She believes he needs to know the truth, but in actuality, Rakhee needs to let someone into her life, into the darkness of her family’s past.

Rakhee knows something is not right between her parent...more

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Jul 14, 2011 S. Syed rated it 5 of 5 stars

Gripping modern Jane Eyre: a coming of age mystery that will never let you go

This is one of those rare novels that once begun is impossible to turn away from, so be forewarned and prepared to read it in one sitting. Though this is only to feel the loneliness of missing a beloved friend, and to want to begin all over again. Unlike many big stories that try the reader's patience with unnecessary details, Nair's novel efficiently contains a multi-generational family saga, loves, deaths, secrets, ru...more

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Jul 12, 2011 Lydia Presley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, coming-of-age, fiction, india

What is it about these stories set in India and why do they keep hooking me? Is it their beautiful covers? Their promise of something deep lurking within? The hope that such a sad story might possibly have a happy ending?

Whatever it is, I am so incredibly glad that I gave in to the urge and picked up The Girl in the Garden. This is not the typical sad, heavy story set against the backdrop of India. Yes, there is a touch of poverty, yes, the caste system is firmly in place - but instead of being...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Sujata Massey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Books about NRIs returning to their family roots in India often are accused of focusing on how alienated the protagonist feels and how little they understand their roots. On the outside, that's how THE GIRL IN THE GARDEN seems it will turn out; but it turns the table on expectations and is an absolutely suspenseful, compelling read.

The novel starts with Rakhee, a US-born 11 year old girl visiting Kerala for the first time with her troubled young mother. Rakhee doesn't want to be there at all be...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Pia rated it 5 of 5 stars

I started The Girl in the Garden on a transatlantic flight. I had to change planes in London and I was irritated at being interrupted in the middle of the story, just as some of the intriguing questions and mysteries of The Girl in the Garden were making themselves known.

I loved the voice of young Rakhee, an innocent, cloistered girl who was exposed to a brand new world as a young woman and discovers the secrets of her family's past that will change her life forever. I loved the world Kamala Nai...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Book Twirps rated it 4 of 5 stars

Rakhee Singh leaves a letter for her fiancee along with her engagement ring before heading off to India. The letter explains that she has been keeping secrets from him, and that she must return to India to resolve some things that happened there when she was eleven. That summer, while traveling with her mother, Rakhee is introduced to a whole new world which is much different than the life she leads in Minnesota. When she arrives in India with her mother there are a plethora of family secrets th...more

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May 20, 2011 Sheila rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: cultural, mystery, relationships

Born into two cultures, Rakhee Singh has built an American life for herself and hides the secrets of her Indian family. But now she’s engaged to be married; imagining building a family of her own, she knows she must first make peace with her past, and she wonders if her fiancé will still want to love her.

Kamala Nair’s The Girl in the Garden is a book written as beautifully as the garden it enshrines. The author engages readers with vivid depiction of childhood. In America, little Rakhee is alway...more Born into two cultures, Rakhee Singh has built an American life for herself and hides the secrets of her Indian family. But now she’s engaged to be married; imagining building a family of her own, she knows she must first make peace with her past, and she wonders if her fiancé will still want to love her.

Kamala Nair’s The Girl in the Garden is a book written as beautifully as the garden it enshrines. The author engages readers with vivid depiction of childhood. In America, little Rakhee is always the odd one out, never quite fitting into their neighborhood and school while mother Amma buries secrets in the colors of her garden. In India, Rakhee is accepted as family but still can’t trust the love she’s offered, and still can’t offer what’s wanted in return. Meanwhile the garden of her parents’ love is filling up with weeds.

Rakhee finds acceptance in another garden, and a beautiful relationship develops while the world falls apart. Innocent discoveries bring guilty mysteries to light. And Rakhee slowly learns what it is she really wants.

The beauty of India, the simplicity of a different world, and the complexity of tradition and relationships are beautifully described in this book. Scents and sounds rise from the page. A child runs through the undergrowth and the reader feels the plants tug at her heels. The writing’s as rich as the peacocks and flowers on the cover and the story tugs at the strings of the heart. Rakhee’s visit to her past brings grounding and meaning to her present, and the resolution to the mystery is sweet, sad and satisfying, especially when viewed through her adult eyes. The Girl in the Garden is an enchanting story, told in first person with convincing voice, seen through the curious eyes of a child, and building up to the wisdom and love of an adult at peace with herself. It deserves a place next to The Namesake on any bookshelf.

Disclosure: I received an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.(less)

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Jul 24, 2012 CriCra CriCra rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Una casa di petali rossi è il libro con cui la scrittrice Kamala Nair quest’anno ha debuttato nelle librerie di vari paesi nel mondo. In questo libro l’autrice stessa ha messo per iscritto una storia nata dai ricordi di un suo viaggio in India, in cui i luoghi e le persone familiari, hanno contribuito a creare questa bella e incantevole storia.

La protagonista è Rakhee, una giovane artista che alla vigilia di un passo importante come il matrimonio, decide di mettere alla luce del sole, tutti gli...more Una casa di petali rossi è il libro con cui la scrittrice Kamala Nair quest’anno ha debuttato nelle librerie di vari paesi nel mondo. In questo libro l’autrice stessa ha messo per iscritto una storia nata dai ricordi di un suo viaggio in India, in cui i luoghi e le persone familiari, hanno contribuito a creare questa bella e incantevole storia.

La protagonista è Rakhee, una giovane artista che alla vigilia di un passo importante come il matrimonio, decide di mettere alla luce del sole, tutti gli oscuri segreti che fino ad ora aveva tenuto al sicuro nel suo cuore senza mai confidarsi con nessuno, persino con colui che ben presto sarebbe diventato il suo compagno per la vita. Compirà quindi un viaggio che la riporterà in India dopo tanti anni di assenza, per cercare colei dalla quale tanto tempo prima aveva deciso di allontanarsi.

Inizia così un viaggio nella memoria di Rakhee che dalla cittadina di Plainfield nel Minnesota, ci condurrà fin nella lontana India, facendoci conoscere episodi della sua infanzia e i suoi genitori Aba, suo padre e Amma, sua madre e tutti i suoi parenti indiani che hanno lasciato un segno indelebile nel suo passato. Conosceremo i pensieri perplessi e le paure di una bambina timida, introversa e insicura di sé, alle prese con i propri genitori che non si parlano e si evitano quasi sempre e quelle poche volte che lo fanno finiscono per discutere molto animatamente.

Il pensiero di lasciare solo Aba per un’estate intera,
unito alla prospettiva di un divorzio, era insopportabile.
Sotto lo stesso tetto, la nostra famiglia si era divisa…
poteva sopravvivere, con un oceano a separarla?

Rakhee ci farà conoscere attraverso i suoi occhi e la sua voce, gli straordinari usi e costumi indiani. Ogni minimo dettaglio come il modo di vestirsi, la lingua parlata, la stessa varietà del cibo nel loro carosello multicolore, ci lasceranno affascinati. Per non parlare dei luoghi dove la storia è ambientata: il Kerala, dove ritroviamo una lussureggiante e poliedrica flora, come gli spettacolari alberi Ashoka (“Senza Dolore”) dai quali la stessa dimora della famiglia di Rakhee prenderà il nome.

È stato interessante leggere tutto ciò che ha fatto da contorno alla nascita di questo libro: i ricordi dell’autrice, i suoi viaggi, la difficoltà e i rifiuti editoriali. È facile percepire come l’autrice, per sua stessa ammissione, abbia preso ad esempio per questo suo libro, storie conosciute in tutto il mondo come Il Giardino Segreto di Frances H. Burnett e ancora quella di Raperonzolo dei Fratelli Grimm.
Tutto in stile “bollywoodiano” dato lo scenario ambientale indiano.

Un vento sommesso cominciò a fischiarmi nelle orecchie e
agitò i rami dell’albero ashoka, che riversò una pioggia
di petali rossi. Allargai le braccia e li raccolsi, mentre Krishna
si sollevò a sedere e osservò quella cascata di petali
con la bocca aperta per lo stupore.

Ma poi con la lettura, ci si rende conto della serietà della storia la quale mette in evidenza di come in molti paesi nel mondo, nonostante la vita sia approdata a grandi passi nel ventunesimo secolo, ci siano usanze drastiche in grado di decidere il destino di chi (in questo caso) nasce donna. Fin dalla tenera età è la famiglia a decidere chi sarà lo sposo a prescindere di quale sia la causa se per motivi di eredità nobiliari o per prevenire tracolli finanziari della stessa famiglia.

Un libro serio e drammatico, forse a volte anche un po’ troppo. Il finale poi è riuscito a dare un senso di riscatto per tutto ciò che i protagonisti principali hanno passato, subito e sofferto durante la loro storia. Anche se non rientra esattamente tra quelli che sono i miei generi preferiti, non mi sento di escluderlo tra quelle che sono storie ricche di pathos, atmosfere suggestive e per chi ama il genere, drammaticità reale.
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Oct 05, 2012 Savannah Leigh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: slice-of-life, india

WARNING: Not at all a book for the faint of heart.

This novel, is a cross between The Secret Garden, and an Indian Borgias. Young Rakhee is taken on vacation (edging on kidnapping) back to her unstable mother's childhood home. From the very moment she sets foot in the door, she knows something is wrong. Even her cousins and fast-new-friends inform her that "something isn't right about this place".

The walls are teeming with secrets and scandals, and the family will go to, as Chitra (Rakhee's mothe...more WARNING: Not at all a book for the faint of heart.

This novel, is a cross between The Secret Garden, and an Indian Borgias. Young Rakhee is taken on vacation (edging on kidnapping) back to her unstable mother's childhood home. From the very moment she sets foot in the door, she knows something is wrong. Even her cousins and fast-new-friends inform her that "something isn't right about this place".

The walls are teeming with secrets and scandals, and the family will go to, as Chitra (Rakhee's mother) says, savage lengths to keep face. Ranging form elderly and child abuse, to something as simply as blackmail, they suffer from extreme pride and dark secrets.

It's a completely absorbing read, that'll keep you turning pages just to figure out what happens, to know if it's reality or fiction; ghosts or flesh and blood. There are several startling twists in the books that border a little on the ridiculous, but never quite jump the shark.

It's an extraordinarily dark book, with it's peaks of bright happiness, just enough to keep going that reflex the emotions one go through when dealing with family skeletons.

What I liked about this book, is that in the end, the author doesn't pander to you to forgive the mother (whose sordid past is the main railroad the plot drives upon), and that's okay. Far too many books gives you a complex character that continually has choice after choice, and simply chooses selfishly, irrationally and childishly: but then at the end shrugs it's shoulders and gives the excuse "she's only human."

Happily this book takes a far more realistic view. You aren't damned for still being angry at some of the characters, and while there is forgiveness and a happy ending, their sins are not washed away with the magical wand of "they were young, and that's the past, this is the present." It's a novel that takes itself and the readers seriously.

Like I said before, there is abuse of the elderly and children without reprimand as well as forced arranged marriage and themes of suicide. It's not a light before bed read, but a good novel deserving of praise and every accolade it gets.(less)

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Nov 16, 2011 Jaclyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Rakhee Singh should be happy. She is smart, successful, and engaged to a wonderful man. So when the book opens with Rakhee stealing away from her fiance, leaving the ring and a letter, and getting on a plane to India, you naturally wonder why. What is it in Rakhee's past that makes her question her ability to sustain a loving marriage? What is it that she has to do before she can truly commit to her fiance?

At age 10, Rakhee was growing up in Minnesota, living a seemingly idyllic life. She doesn'...more Rakhee Singh should be happy. She is smart, successful, and engaged to a wonderful man. So when the book opens with Rakhee stealing away from her fiance, leaving the ring and a letter, and getting on a plane to India, you naturally wonder why. What is it in Rakhee's past that makes her question her ability to sustain a loving marriage? What is it that she has to do before she can truly commit to her fiance?

At age 10, Rakhee was growing up in Minnesota, living a seemingly idyllic life. She doesn't have any friends at school, but she has her art and her dog and two parents who she assumes love each other as much as they love her. Aba, her father, is a research cardiologist at a respected hospital. Amma, her beautiful mother, stays home and reads to Rakhee, sings to her, gardens with her. But Amma has a dark side as well, and Aba struggles to maintain balance and harmony in their family. One day, Amma begins receiving letters from India and she takes Rakhee with her back to her ancestral home. In India, Rakhee plays with her cousins and plots to repair Aba and Amma's fractured marriage. But in the course of her explorations, she discovers a walled garden hidden behind the house, containing a secret that has changed the course of their family's fortunes. As Rakhee becomes more and more entwined with the secret in the garden, she begins to question the nature of fidelity and love, and to wonder if every assumption she has made about her family and herself is false.

I really, really enjoyed The Girl in the Garden. Rakhee is a sweet, charming narrator and you, as the reader, truly feel for her as her world starts to crumble around her. Kamala Nair did a marvelous job of creating a lush and vivid world, teeming with life and weather and personality, and she is able to show events as they unfold through Rakhee's eyes. That could be a difficult line to walk - after all, Rakhee is a child, unlikely to understand everything she witnesses, and many of the adults in the story are keeping secrets from her. Yet despite Rakhee's occasional biases and confusion as a narrator, the reader is always able to piece together what is going on. I think that it can be quite tricky to write a narrative through a child's eyes and have it make sense, so I was extremely impressed by Nair's ability to do so. The secret wasn't that surprising - I figured it out about 50 pages before it was revealed - but it certainly was believable that it could have had the effect it did on Rakhee's family. Altogether, I thought this book was really very, very good and I'm looking forward to reading more from this author. Recommended.(less)

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Jan 23, 2013 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Usually when I’m reading a book for review I think about things to say as I read. Halfway through this book I didn't know what I was going to say and now that I’m finished I still don’t think I can do it justice.

We are introduced to Rakhee as she is preparing to leave her sleeping fiance in the middle of the night. She knows she can’t marry him until she goes back to India and deals with her past. She leaves him a long letter explaining, and that explanation is the rest of the story in the book....more

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Jun 13, 2011 emmegail rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-review, favorites

I truly could not put this book down and when I did, I was thinking about the story and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. The story is driven by the main character, Rakhee, as she is on her way back to southern India. She has left her fiancee in bed with her engagement ring on top of a letter. This book is her letter to him explaining why she must return to India and tell him about her secret past before she will marry him. Rakhee soon goes back in time to the summer she turned...more

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Jul 13, 2011 Serena rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair is a stunning debut novel framed by an older Indian woman who leaves her fiance to return to her ancestral home and deal with the past, which is a bit cliche. However, the bulk of the novel settles on Rakhee’s summer spent in India before her 11th birthday with her mother’s (Amma) mysterious family and away from her father, Aba. Clearly Nair’s prose has been influenced by fairy tales and is sometimes reminiscent of The Secret Garden and Little Red Riding Hoo...more

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Aug 16, 2011 Natalia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I really enjoyed reading this story of a girl and her mother who return to their native India and spend the summer unravelling secrets that have been hidden in a secret garden. My only dissappointment was with the ending - it was so sad! And all of the relatives living in India turned out to be mean, bad people. I thought there would be some redeeming value in Rakhee's aunts and uncles. It was so sad that Gitangali killed herself, and she didn't know that Dev had called off the marriage so she w...more

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Jun 18, 2011 Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley

Now a newly engaged adult, Rakhee remains haunted by the events of her one summer in India. The novel tells the story of that summer in a long letter written to her fiancee, explaining why she must defer their engagement. Until she confronts her past, she cannot face her future. What happened that summer?

One of these days, I would really love to read a novel set in the Indian subcontinent or with first generation desi folk and not have it be almost entirely depressing. Sure, times are hard there...more

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Oct 03, 2011 Patricia added it

When this gothic and mysterious novel opens, Rakhee Singh is a young woman about to graduate with a master's degree from the Yale School of Architecture. She is engaged to be married, but is planning to travel to southern India to visit her relatives there. Before she leaves for India, she writes her fiancé a long letter in which she relates her family's secrets and hopes that he will still want to marry her after he reads it.

As a child, Rakhee lives in Plainfield, Minnesota, where her father i...more When this gothic and mysterious novel opens, Rakhee Singh is a young woman about to graduate with a master's degree from the Yale School of Architecture. She is engaged to be married, but is planning to travel to southern India to visit her relatives there. Before she leaves for India, she writes her fiancé a long letter in which she relates her family's secrets and hopes that he will still want to marry her after he reads it.

As a child, Rakhee lives in Plainfield, Minnesota, where her father is a research scientist. She is treated like an outsider by her classmates, because her background is different from theirs. When Rakhee is almost 11 years old, her mother Chitra receives a letter from India that makes her decide to return to her family's home for a lengthy visit. Because Rakhee's summer vacation is approaching, her mother takes her daughter along on the trip to meet her Indian relatives. Chitra's family was once very wealthy and well-respected, because her father had founded a local hospital. In the years since Rakhee's grandfather died, the Varma family's fortune has declined, although they still appear to be well-off by local standards. When Rakhee and Chitra arrive, the members of the Varma household include Rakhee's grandmother, her aunt Sadhana and uncle Vijay and Sadhana's three daughters. Rahkee gets to know her cousins and spends hours playing with the younger girls. But almost from the beginning, Rakhee senses that something is wrong and that some secrets are being hidden from her. That only makes her even more determined to discover the truth. She doesn't like it when her mother's old boyfriend begins paying regular visits and worries that their romance might be rekindled. A sinister man named Dev frequently visits the Varma residence and they are forced to treat him with respect, since he now manages the family's hospital. However, they don't appear to like him much. Her mother and her aunt warn Rakhee to stay out of the woods behind the house, but because she is curious, she disobeys them and makes a startling discovery with far-reaching consequences.

I enjoyed this novel and was intrigued by it, even though I figured out most of the plot developments in advance. The exotic location and mysterious characters helped to sustain my interest. (less)

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Jul 29, 2011 Laura (booksnob) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, humanities-reading-list, young-adult

The Girl in the Garden is a unique story that is narrated by a 11 year old girl named Rakhee. Rakhee's parents are from India but met, married and are raising Rakhee in Minnesota. Mysteriously, a letter arrives in the mail from India and thus begins a life changing journey for Rakhee and her family.

Rakhee and her Amma (mom) make a trip for the summer to India where her mother grew up. They arrive at the ancestral house called Ashoka named after the Ashoka tree whose beautiful red flowers grace t...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Rene Spector rated it 4 of 5 stars

Like another reviewer, I keep finding myself picking up stories of India. Unlike many reviewers, I did not find sadness in this story at all. Instead the triumph of a little girl, wise beyond her years and the coming of age in the face of life being true to itself. The twists and turns were spoiled a bit by being a little predictable for me, but I was already so captured by the web of beautiful writing, that I didn't mind. The author set the scene richly and continued throughout the entire book....more

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Oct 19, 2011 Tze-Wen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: india, audiobook

The novel starts off with the protagonist, Rakhee Singh, newly engaged and writing a letter to her fiance. It's clear from the beginning that something unspeakable happened in her past, an event that led to the separation of mother and daughter.
At this crossroads in her life, Rakhee has to decide to either continue down the path she has chosen for herself years ago, or to break free and divulge her secrets to her beloved. Indeed, what exactly happened during that summer of her eleventh birthday...more The novel starts off with the protagonist, Rakhee Singh, newly engaged and writing a letter to her fiance. It's clear from the beginning that something unspeakable happened in her past, an event that led to the separation of mother and daughter.
At this crossroads in her life, Rakhee has to decide to either continue down the path she has chosen for herself years ago, or to break free and divulge her secrets to her beloved. Indeed, what exactly happened during that summer of her eleventh birthday, when she left her American hometown of Plainfield behind for a holiday abroad?
I have to admit that I wasn't immediately captured by the storyline, nor did I enjoy it all the way through. It definitely has its weak points, which is why I did not feel compelled to finish the audiobook in a hurry.
What I did like about The Girl in the Garden was the vividness and detail with which rural India was described. Nair (and the narrator, Gandhi) does a wonderful job transporting the reader to this excluded, exotic and and dusty place called Ashoka. The main characters are well developed and Rakhee, caught between childhood and puberty, is just the girl she should be: neither particularly likable or disagreeable. She is most definitely self-centered, but that is to be expected in her situation. The further the story advances, the more the reader realizes how few allies Rakhee has. Who can she trust? Who was not involved in the hush-up of the family's secret long ago? And where is her father when she needs him?
On the other hand, the storytelling was sometimes too elaborate, and life in the country very boring and slow indeed. I also thought there was too much melodrama here and there, but not so much that it did not fit into the story. I am still in doubt whether I liked the ending or not. You could say that a tale that has touches of magical realism (and a whole lot of bad stuff, let's not forget that) woven into it, should have a corresponding ending. From that perspective, Nair created the perfect ending.(less)

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Sep 03, 2011 CeeAnne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: india, kindled-this-one

When I picked this one up I saw that a reviewer called it a "modern Jane Eyre." That got my attention since I had just the day before finished Jane Eyre. Of course the setting also sucked me in to getting it since India is my favorite reading destination. So the bar was set high for me, and maybe that is why I only gave it a 3. The mystery storyline is actually very interesting, and I think the author did a good job creating her characters. I liked some, I was mad at some, I disliked some....tha...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Ginny rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was a privilege to read an advance copy of The Girl in the Garden and to meet the author, Kamala Nair, in person. Working in the Communications division of the library does have its perks. I met with Kamala in order to take some photos and to do some video interviews to help promote her debut novel which will be available on June 15th. She's going to be at Barnes & Noble - Apache Mall on Friday, June 17th and at the Rochester Public Library on Thursday, July 28th. Watch the library's YouT ...more

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About Kamala Nair

Kamala Nair was born in London and grew up in the United States. A graduate of Wellesley College, she studied literature at Oxford University and received an M.Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin in 2005. She currently lives in New York City, where she works at ELLE DECOR.

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“It's too late for any of us. But you youngsters, you still have hope. Go and explore. Don't be afraid to search for the truth. There is nothing to fear.” — 3 people liked it

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