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Pacing was okay.

Very beautiful story with intricate details that draw you in deeper and deeper.

Just read it

Beautifully crafted and covers the whole range of human emotion. Loved every character and every word!

The best book I’ve read all year. The trials of love, marriage and child rearing across multiple generations made me feel like I personally knew the Parambil family.

More powerful than Shantaram, this book captures the same profound themes and principles, delivering an even deeper emotional and philosophical impact. Beautifully written; its meaning and impact on your daily life will continue to reveal themselves for years to come.

I really struggled with this one. I wanted to like it. I loved the characters, and I felt like I really got to know each one. I loved learning about the culture and era, as well. But… it was sooooo slooooowww. To say it dragged is an understatement. While I kept muddling on through the first thousand or so pages, I realized tonight that I just can’t do it. I can’t suffer through another thousand pages of this book just to see what happens. I rarely ever put down a book unfinished, but this one’s just going to have to unread.

As one might expect from 700+ pages, this book involves many different narratives interconnected through the theme of remedial love, specifically through the lens of family. Though I had trouble parsing through the technical and medicinal terms and language, I can admit that it adds so much colour and texture to this book. I was particularly touched by what it means to heal in this novel. How do we think about treatment and cures beyond our modern understandings (i.e., drugs)? This novel, I feel, pushes us to see that underneath all forms of remedies is a love that “treats one as their own.” (I may have butchered this quote.) I think this is best exemplified thorugh the character of Big Ammachi who, anchored by her faith and love for her family, goes to unimaginable lengths to ensure their safety and wellbeing. Lastly, the narratives of this book are told against the backdrop of gradually rising political tensions in what starts out as India under British rule and evolves into 1970s independent India undergoing major political tensions, inflation, etc. While Parambil does not feel like a space that is experiencing the worst of these sociopolitical changes, it definitely is a space that allows the author to explore the caste system in India and its varied manifestations.

Verghese has done it again. A novel of beauty, pain, loss and love. A triumph. I am the better for having read it.