Today I finished reading The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, and I remembered what it was like to be a child.

[JaxsonConnor]

It was a slow beginning. It took a while for me to really sink into the book. For the first half of the book, I guess you could say that I floated along. I liked the prose. The characters were interesting. The plot was engaging, however fragmentary and non-linear it was.

The prose. I'll elaborate on that. At first I thought the Capitalisation of Nouns (and Other Words Too) was a bit of a gimmick, but then I remembered this was a story told in third person largely from the perspective of two children - twins (interspersed with the conventional God-Narrator). That's how I thought back when I was a kid too. I was entranced by objects, and the words that described those objects. Sometimes it'd even be intangible things, like emotions. And in my head, they were capitalised. They were important.

[Jyotsna]

Roy used language as a creative tool to tell a tale through Children's and then as adults' perspectives.

[Hannah]

I have a lot to say about this book. The characters in this book make it what it is. The relationship between the twins and their storyline is continuously compared with one another, something that really provoked my curiosity and made me eager to know more.
Secondly, the mother's character? Holy shit. I feel like she represents a portion of the Indian population that are so prevalent but are still hiding in the shadows simultaneously.
Love the theme of the 'small things' and 'the big things' and the influx between them. Also, the theme of family obligation is so important. In India it's like prison shackles changed on to individuals.
If there's anything you should read, it's this book.