PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Kandasamy...writes with poetic intensity ... Yet sometimes this intensity undoes itself ... But even as she is beaten down – as, through Kandasamy’s use of stylistic devices such as repetition, are we – the narrator reflects that every moment has narrative potential. The risk of desensitisation is averted: the novel becomes a meditation on the art of writing about desire, abuse and trauma ... The book jacket evokes khadi fabric bordered in saffron, something the socially beloved figure of the \'good Indian girl\' might wear. Open it, however, and a voice emerges that expresses desire, feels pain and has steely courage. It screams from its demure outerwear, refusing to be silenced in its search for love. The reader is left with the impact and implications of that, and the ideal of servile Indian femininity is in tatters at last.
