Battle for Bittora
Dec. 21st, 2013 04:53 pmTomorrow I head off to parts Canadian for a few days, so the December meme posts will be on a brief hiatus. Feel free to keep jumping in on the previous posts if you like! :)
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livrelibre asked about something I've read lately and/or an old favorite! Since I finished Battle for Bittora the other day, this post will also serve for deepad's Anuja Chauhan reading club.
Jinni Pande is a cartoon animator who comes from a line of Indian politicians. When her bossy, supposedly-retired grandmother ropes her into campaigning for the upcoming elections, she soon finds herself running for a Parliament seat against Zain Altaf Khan, a childhood friend from her hometown of Bittora.
As with The Zoya Factor, Chauhan conveys the feeling of being swept up in larger social currents incredibly well, but my favorite aspect of this book was the family dynamics. Jinni's relationships with her mother and grandmother were heartwarming and hilariously, believably complicated. Pushpa Pande is probably the most indomitable Terrible Old Woman I've ever had the pleasure to encounter in fiction, and I wanted more of her backstory with Jinni's grandpa!
I also loved Jinni herself- her sense of perspective, her self-awareness, her refusal to forget about the social problems other politicians keep glossing over during the campaign. It's easy to let cynicism about politicians and their motives become cynicism/fatalism about politics, but Jinni never slides into that, and I admire her for it. She's aware of the realities of campaigning, she isn't afraid to face dirty truths, and she wants to make a positive change, even though becoming an election candidate was never her idea in the first place. "Social responsibility" is an easily warped term, but I think a certain interpretation of it does describe Jinni's attitude pretty well: since she's running, she wants to stand up for the interests of all the people she's representing, not just the wealthy and powerful.
Jinni's romance with Zain was pretty adorable; friends-to-lovers and childhood sweethearts are narrative tropes I enjoy, and I thought the development of their relationship in the context of the campaign was very well done. One thing I really appreciated about Battle for Bittora and The Zoya Factor is that the romance is one thread in a larger plot arc, rather than the main (or at least singular) focus. Romantic relationships always happen in the context of something else, and I like them best when the "something else" is at least as big and messy and well-fleshed-out as the relationships themselves. Chauhan is amazing at doing exactly this!
livrelibre asked about something I've read lately and/or an old favorite! Since I finished Battle for Bittora the other day, this post will also serve for deepad's Anuja Chauhan reading club.Jinni Pande is a cartoon animator who comes from a line of Indian politicians. When her bossy, supposedly-retired grandmother ropes her into campaigning for the upcoming elections, she soon finds herself running for a Parliament seat against Zain Altaf Khan, a childhood friend from her hometown of Bittora.
As with The Zoya Factor, Chauhan conveys the feeling of being swept up in larger social currents incredibly well, but my favorite aspect of this book was the family dynamics. Jinni's relationships with her mother and grandmother were heartwarming and hilariously, believably complicated. Pushpa Pande is probably the most indomitable Terrible Old Woman I've ever had the pleasure to encounter in fiction, and I wanted more of her backstory with Jinni's grandpa!
I also loved Jinni herself- her sense of perspective, her self-awareness, her refusal to forget about the social problems other politicians keep glossing over during the campaign. It's easy to let cynicism about politicians and their motives become cynicism/fatalism about politics, but Jinni never slides into that, and I admire her for it. She's aware of the realities of campaigning, she isn't afraid to face dirty truths, and she wants to make a positive change, even though becoming an election candidate was never her idea in the first place. "Social responsibility" is an easily warped term, but I think a certain interpretation of it does describe Jinni's attitude pretty well: since she's running, she wants to stand up for the interests of all the people she's representing, not just the wealthy and powerful.
Jinni's romance with Zain was pretty adorable; friends-to-lovers and childhood sweethearts are narrative tropes I enjoy, and I thought the development of their relationship in the context of the campaign was very well done. One thing I really appreciated about Battle for Bittora and The Zoya Factor is that the romance is one thread in a larger plot arc, rather than the main (or at least singular) focus. Romantic relationships always happen in the context of something else, and I like them best when the "something else" is at least as big and messy and well-fleshed-out as the relationships themselves. Chauhan is amazing at doing exactly this!
