Rachel's Reviews > Burnt Sugar

I admired but didn’t particularly like this book. I’ve talked before about how I don’t really get on with books about motherhood, and sometimes the reverse is true too, I don’t always love books about daughterhood, especially when it’s the book’s main focus. (Something like Transcendent Kingdom is the exception, where the mother/daughter relationship is one thread among many.)

I was finding something salvageable in the first half of Burnt Sugar, but the second half just lost me. While I tend to enjoy 'unlikable' protagonists, Antara was often too much for me--I found her to be deliberately belligerent toward the reader in a way that I didn't think was particularly interesting or well-executed. I think this book does have a lot going for it in terms of its chilly depiction of a strained mother/daughter relationship, but Antara herself staunchly refused to do any of the heavy lifting to earn my investment. I just didn't find her believable or her actions comprehensible; this book is written in the first person and still I struggled to discern some of Antara's motivations (this isn't helped by the book's awkward structure, flitting between the past and the present in a way that was occasionally challenging to follow and which I didn't think ultimately did it any favors). 

Avni Doshi's prose also failed to impress me, but, like most of my criticisms here, I feel that might just be a matter of personal taste. I do see why this book has been so critically well-received, it just really wasn't for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Abrams for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.