... gut-wrenching ... Patel succeeds in depicting the ways the upper class can be a gilded cage for women: while men enjoy the freedom of public life and conspicuous consumption, the women are merely another thing to be judged, used, and discarded: 'Women are Bombay real estate,' says Noomi’s cousin. It’s a chilling story.
Mirror Made of Rain, Naheed Phiroze Patel’s astonishing debut novel, has at its center a blistering narrative fueled by alcohol and toxic family ties. Despite its disturbing theme of abusive relationships, the writing positively shines, offering a poised multigenerational story about growing up, loss, escapism, and migration ... An MFA graduate from Columbia University, Patel has a style that is highly polished while also displaying the lived-in comfort of a writer who knows her territory. The prose wanders in places but quickly finds its way again. The writing is, perhaps, a bit too beautiful at times, almost as if Patel wanted to perfect her prose more than her characters. The first-person format heightens the novel’s claustrophobia, yet there is also a poetic, winsome understanding of human nature at the heart of Patel’s writing. In the hands of a lesser writer, characters like Noomi, Veer, and Asha could easily become intolerable. Yet Patel brings empathy to their depiction, making them much more than mere caricatures.
