Customer Reviews

Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Kashmira Sheth has done a masterful job of bringing her readers into the intimacy of the family life of 16-year old Jeeta, a girl from India.

Jeeta often feels like the odd one out, as so many 16-year old girls do. Her mother tells Jeeta her tongue is too sharp, and Jeeta feels unattractive. 21-year old Nimita, Jeeta's oldest sister, marries happily during the course of the story, and soon after another wedding takes place for their middle sister, 19-year old Mohini, whose husband takes her to live in the United States. Jeeta knows she is next in line to marry, but having watched the family go through countless interviews with prospective grooms, doesn't want to have her husband selected for her. There *is* a certain boy who holds her interest, but her friendship with him remains a secret from her family. With the support of her best friend from school, and from her father, Jeeta discovers that there are many more open doors for her than she suspected.

This story is fun to read and the character of Jeeta is well-drawn. I especially enjoyed the many details of Indian life Sheth included in her story--these details of dress, custom, ceremony, and food brought the story to life and gave it authenticity.

Jeeta knows she is expected to marry one of the suitors her parents will choose for her, but, watching her sisters marry men they do not love, she is quite sure she does not want to follow this path. After making friends with Sarina, a new girl at school, and witnessing the freedom she recieves from her parents, she desires more than ever to choose her own fate. Caught between her parent's expectations and her own wish for love and freedom, Jeeta must balance the weight of tradition with her own desires.

I really enjoyed this book. It paints a colorful picture of modern India, and while it occasionally lacked detail, overall it truly brought a city to life. Jeeta is a realistic character with both strengths and weaknesses, and you can emphasize with her internal conflicts. It's a relatively quick read but very entertaining.

I really enjoyed this story. Sheth paints a very vivid picture of life in Mumbai, weaving in details about native plants, customs, and family life. The main character, Jeeta, is well-developed as a strong, independent teenager looking to find her own way of reconciling her dreams and the expectations of her family. I highly recommend this book.

Jeet's family is busy arranging marriages for her two older sisters, but Jeeta longs for romance rather than elaborate parties, and dreads her own turn. Her new friendship with Sarina and her educated, liberal parents will lead her to further question her traditional family's ways - and when she falls in love with Sarina's cousin, more questions arise. Can she honor her family's traditions while making her own way in life? Fine insights into contemporary Indian life are revealed.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

It must have been a slow day at my library if I picked up a book without knowing anything about it. But I guess I was taken by the premise and setting - a love and coming-of-age story set in modern India. I am familiar with India quite well and have never read any YA on the subject, so I decided to give it a go. Sorry to say, nothing worth of attention here.

"Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet" (meaning here Jeeta is a dark-skinned girl who is expected to have a sweet, mango-like, temper to find a husband) is neither a love story nor a coming-of-age story. It is simply a lukewarm narration filled with peculiarities of Indian culture - arranged marriages, expensive weddings, caste system, difficulties of dating, discrimination based on the skin color, all delivered in an extremely juvenile way. You would never thing that the narrator, Jeeta, is almost 18, she sure talks and acts like she is 11. There is no drama here, no mystery, no passion, no big revelations. Jeeta by the end of the story decides to go to college. That's it.

On a positive side, although book is of a very low literally quality, gives a nice "taste" of India with some authentic descriptions of food, clothes, and customs. But that's all, unfortunately.

Good only as an introduction to Indian culture for middle-graders.

Growing up in a traditional family in Mumbai, India, sixteen-year-old Jeeta was taught that obedience and home-making skills were all that she needed for a happy future. Her mother is consumed with the problems of arranging marriages for her three daughters and is sure that Jeeta's dark skin and smart mouth will turn off prospective grooms. Then Jeeta becomes friends with Sarina, whose liberal, educated family and modern ideas open her eyes to other possibilities for her life. Suddenly, she's questioning the expectations of her society and her life becomes even more complicated when she falls in love with a mysterious (and forbidden) boy that she meets. Jeeta must now try to find a way to follow her heart without letting her family down and decide whether to respect or rebel against her traditional culture.

Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet gives a fascinating view of Indian culture that is so vivid I could almost taste the spicy sambhar soup and feel the silky cloth of a sari against my skin. I learned a lot about Indian customs, but this book never feels like a textbook. Even though the setting is exotic, Jeeta's problems and emotions are as relatable as your best friend pouring her heart out to you. Her struggle to balance her duties and her dreams is difficult and inspiring. This book does not simply shun traditional ways of Indian culture, but causes the reader to consider both sides of the argument. I definitely recommend this book to everyone!

This was a good book. It was a quick read, but I was not satisfied with the ending. It did leave me curious to read more from the author or similar stories about Indian culture.

What does America do to the Indian male? Does every Indian family suffer some sort of family violence by males from affair? It seems so from the writings of Bharati Mukherjee to the movies of Mira Nair.
Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet is a very pretty book that really is a formulaic teen romance novel dressed up to be a book about growing up female in Mumbai. The labored place and character setting beginning was very difficult to overcome (to get my daughter to continue reading this book after several failed attempts, I had to bribe her with a promise to buy a Clique novel.) The book becomes somewhat interesting and somewhat evocative of Mumbai but eventually fizzling to a halfhearted feminist creed that a strong girl can save the day.
There are 11,914,348 people in the core city of Mumbai (The Stateman's Yearbook, 2006) and about half are female, please tell me that there is one within this population that can write a simple, engaging, wonderful story for the young adult audience about growing up in a place with 12 million other people that does not include the convenient bad guy from America.