Audition

 by Katie Kitamura

This novel felt like a product of a creative writing class with a technically clever twist half way through but did not work for me. The narrator is a middle-aged actress, who at the start of the novel is rehearsing for a new play which in the second part is up and running very successfully, but the story is about her personla life with husband and family.

There is a reference in the first half to a phone app which seems incongruous given the timeframe referred to and this may have put me off early on, but while I enjoyed some of the style I did not enjoy this book. 6/10

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

 by Kiran Desai

Slow moving but wonderfully told tale of two young Indians at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, initially living in the US and whom there grandparents and parents try to arrange a marriage for. They both reject this but do eventually meet after 250 pages. The characters are well drawn and the story unfolds. Sonia's early abusive lover-an artist-is the only character it is hard to come into land with but this was a novel that was like a lovely cushion you could relax into 9/10