Chandana Roy’s novel, “A Good Girl” hooks you in from the word go. A light read with nimble social humour yet a gripping plot, the book keeps you drawn in till the last page. The characterisation is excellent and the book certainly does not come across as amateur work.
The main protagonist, Ellora has been given a strong personality but is very typically the average girl-next-door. The story moves at a comfortable pace and there are no dull moments. The author smoothly travels from past to present. The language was overall understandable and the settings were quite detailed.
The book plentifully describes Nature, often giving insights to the botanical names of flowers or zoological names of birds, but these are skilfully woven into the plot and never appear out of place. Humour is thrown in often and in the right measure. I enjoyed getting acquainted with typical characters of Leela Banerjee and her group of women who look down on anything ‘desi’ and Vicky Bhalla with his thick Punjabi accent.
They were very imaginable. Roy seems to be a proficient story-teller who makes sure that the reader never gets bored at any point of time while reading the book.
A few times though, the conversations did appear pretentious. However, these did not in any way take away from the overall quality of the book. To me the best thing about the book is that though written in a light manner, the book emphasises on the importance of following one’s heart. I applaud the author for an excellent plot.
I loved it!
