Well, the initial plot seemed quite interesting where a bunch of people get trapped in a crumbling earthquake hit building, and then decide to share 'one amazing thing' or story from their life to divert their fearing selves from the catastrophic end they are ill-fated for.
The book starts well, and without wasting any time gets straight gets to the main point where earthquake strikes. I picked up this book for the 'one amazing thing' stories that the trapped people would be narrating. However, the disappointment starts with the first story itself, and continues to do so in the stories that followed, as I did not find any thing worth admiring in any of them. The stories lack drama, and while one or two of them were really boring, these everyday life stories had nothing in them worth calling amazing. Also, I hated the fact that the stories were not narrated in the first person voice, and were written as if the writer is saying them. This made it difficult to connect to the characters and their feelings, and thus maybe failed to get across the 'one amazing thing' of their story. Infact, as the book progresses you get more interested in the main story about the survival of the earthquake victims, and the stories of the characters rather seem to be interfering. Also, the abrupt endings of the narrations and then the incomplete end to the book, gets even more frustrating.
All in all, neither the intensity of their suffering from earthquake moved you, nor the emotions from the stories touched you. This was my first Chitra Divakaruni book, and I hope the next in my 'to-read' list -- 'The Palace of Illusions' does not leave me discontented.
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