Book Review: My Name is Parvana by Deborah Ellis

Title: My Name is Parvana

Author: Deborah Ellis

Publisher: Hachette India

Pages: 216

Price: Rs 299

Genre: Literary Fiction / Young Adult

Rating: 10/10

Format: Paperback

About the Book [from the blurb]

Close down your school... or you will pay the price. Close down your school or we will kill you.

Locked away by American military soldiers in Afghanistan, Parvana refuses to talk to her captors. Her silence only baffles and angers those in charge, leading them to question the innocence of this young silent rebel, snatched from the ruins of a bombed-out school. Their only clue is her diary and a series of names in it that they hope will help them figure out what happened.

Through Parvana's story, you will see how lives are shattered and scattered like shrapnel in a country devastated by war. You will encounter people waging their own crushing battles: a single mother striving against vicious tradition to run a school for girls; young girls growing up with grimy realities and dreams of free skies; and students struggling to get an education that will give them wings.

Most of all, you will meet, and never forget, a feisty girl who believes that even in the darkest hours of death and destruction, hope shines forth like the desert sun.

My Thoughts:

‘My Name is Parvana’ is the story of a brave, intelligent and spirited teenage girl Parvana. The story is set in war-torn Afghanistan, after Taliban’s rule.

 What I loved the most about this book is the way the story has been laid out for the reader. It starts at a point that instantly hooks you. This teenage girl has been picked up by the American soldiers from an abandoned, bombed-out school with an old bag which contains a half-eaten copy of ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’ and a battered notebook. Nothing makes her say anything. The story moves back and forth in Present and Past until it merges beautifully at the end, and the story takes complete shape.

Parvana’s mother, an ex-journalist, makes educating young girls her goal in life, completely supported by her own daughters. Though the Taliban rule has come to an end, we find that life has not gone back to normalcy. There are people who are still stuck to those philosophies or are afraid to anger the Taliban. Once accosted by some villagers in the market, Parvana tells them fearlessly “you are all living in the past”.

Parvana is an extraordinary girl. She is headstrong and gritty. She dreams of becoming an architect. “What she really wanted was to build things – things people could live in that would make them feel safe and happy...”

She is extremely imaginative. When she is held captive by the soldiers in a cell, her fertile imagination weaves up a lot of situations like she comes up with an idea of printing poems or chapters of a novel on packaging so that soldiers could read the entire book.

Parvana is independent, compassionate, sensitive and strong-willed. She is confident and taking control of her situation comes naturally to her. “I was born to be in charge.”

It is difficult to imagine life of people in war-afflicted areas, how their hopes, their dreams, their normal lives get shattered every day. Each day is a struggle, even for something which should be every person’s right – education.

“Her life had gone from battle to battle, and she was never ever sure that the future would not be terrifying.”

“Afghanistan had so many armies now -the foreigners, the Taliban, the people who hated both the Taliban and the foreigners, the drug people and the people who had their own private armies just because they could.”

This is the story of how Parvana and her family brave threats, challenging circumstances and even resistance from the villagers to fulfill their dream of educating girls, because they truly believe that only education has the power to transform their circumstances. They also embrace anybody who reaches out to them, making them their companions in the journey of life. Despite the setting, it is certainly a story of hope. Because there are people who care; no matter what are the hurdles, the world is still a good place to be in.

This book is meant for Young Adults and therefore it does not dwell too much into the gore and bloodshed. The book focuses on lives and circumstances.

It is a deeply moving book, and one of the best I have read in a long time. All I would say is you have to meet Parvana. You would not forget her. You would not want to.

And for me, I am going to read the much talked about ‘the Breadwinner series’ by the author.

Note: The text in italics have been quoted from the book.

Review Book courtesy: Hachette India

Image source: Hachette India

Book Review: Operation Lipstick by Pia Heikkila

Title: Operation Lipstick

Author: Pia Heikkila

Publisher: Random House India

Pages: 287

Price: Rs 250

Genre: Fiction 

Rating: 6/10

Format: Paperback

I am beginning to conclude that most of the books are good in parts, like this one. There I said it, I liked the book in parts; the second part, that is!

The cover page is tantalizing but it gives the feel of a spy-thriller, which may not be the right words to describe this book. And then the title - ‘Operation Lipstick’- and the by-line ‘mission for Mr Right’ seem more suitable for a chick lit.

In this interview, the author says that ‘she wanted to marry different genres – war writing, chick-lit and adventure’. It may be what some people would like about this book (I gather it has also made to the bestselling titles list for the month) but for me that was the key problem because where the first part was clearly chick-lit, the second part was majorly war journalism.

The protagonist, Anna Sanderson, is a 32 year old war journalist based in Kabul, working for London-based GNN, and in her own words “single and horny beyond belief”. She stays with Tim, her cameraman, who is in his late thirties; and Kim, an Australian print journalist, touching 30. The book begins like a classic chick lit, and for first several pages we follow the protagonist in her never-ending smoke and booze sessions, fantasies or confessions about men she would like to have sex with or have had, and meeting a man of her dreams Mr Delectable, Mark, at unlikeliest of places. Kelly finds out that her boyfriend Rich had been cheating on her, and she decides that this time she would not forgive him, and plans revenge. Anna, Kelly and Tim team up to pursue a big story that involves Rich in arms smuggling. The mission is christened ‘Operation Lipstick’. The mission eventually turns out to be life-threatening for all of them and clearly, much serious than they had imagined.

Anna also explores the barely there possibility of finding true love in war-torn Afghanistan where there are not enough opportunities to meet the right men. But she meets Mark and keeps bumping into him at unexpected places. She finds herself deeply drawn to him and eventually all works out well at the end.

As I mentioned, the first part of the book has a lot on sex which sometimes can make you cringe. Sample these:

“Nothing wrong with a bit of American beefcake after a main course. I was now imagining myself sucking his, what I hoped would be, huge cock.”

“But it seemed clear that I was arousing something else as there was a huge bulge in his jeans.”

But the crown should go to this piece which starts with “I decided to take a walk to think things through”. The next two pages dwell on Anna fantasizing about having sex with two twenty-somethings army men in detail and ends with Anna masturbating.

However, the book has several funny moments too.

“I fiddled with it, and it turned out that the camera was still working. Bloody mobile phones, no good for saving my life, but hey, don’t worry, it can still take scenic pictures en route! The voice recorder was also in good condition – good to record my will, I guess.”

“Stay calm. You have been in worse shit than this. Actually you haven’t. But keep telling yourself that.”

 “He held the rope, while I lowered myself down. The movies never show you how it happens in real life. My getaway wasn't really elegant or Catwoman like. I looked more like a sack of potatoes wobbling on some string.”

There are no detailed characterizations barring Anna’s. We get to know neither Mark nor Kelly or Tim.

Few other things which I would like to highlight:

• The background or the setting was promising and I loved the part that deals in Anna’s experiences as a war-journalist and her adventures. That part was quite a page-turner.
• I thought Operation Lipstick did not have a proper closure at the end. In fact, I thought it was preposterous to embark on such a dangerous mission to teach a cheating boyfriend lesson. 
• The romantic angle between Anna and Mark needed more fleshing out. Mark – her Mr Delectable – kept popping up at every place Anna goes and eventually both proclaim love for each other. Anna, a self-confessed sex-maniac, was in love with this man was hard to digest when all she did was either fantasize about him or his good looks.
• The angle on Tim was unnecessary.
• Anna Sanderson’s adventures as a war journalist have potential of developing into series (except for the overdose of sex). The author can still marry the chick lit and war-reporting genres.

All said and done, I think, the author shines in the part where the story dwells into the challenges of war-journalism, adventure and the situation in Afghanistan. I would have loved the book much better if the book stuck to a charming yet gutsy heroine and her adventure in war-reporting.

Note: There are a lot of typo errors too. When you love a book, you overlook a few mistakes here and there, but when you have mixed feelings, such mistakes just become eyesores. Don’t they?

Image source: Amazon