A Place Called Home by Preeti Shenoy
My take on the book:
Alka is happily married to Subbu with two beautiful daughters, and a huge coffee estate and bungalow to call her home. However, after a decade of fiercely safeguarding her secrets, Alka’s life now seems to turn upside down with those secrets threatening to destroy the world she carefully built.
Will Alka’s truth bring down her seemingly perfect life and take her away from the place she now called home? Read ‘A Place Called Home’ to know the choices that Alka made in pursuit of a lifelong dream of a home.
This story is built on a unique premise of how the protagonist struggled for an identity and home all her life and how the decisions she made as a young adult came back to haunt her many years later. It also showcases the harsh side of our society where an individual’s social status, and other such factors are given importance than the person themselves.
There are limited number of characters, and it is a welcome phenomenon to see flawed characters in mainstream fiction. The bond that Alka shares with her mother-in-law showcases progressive side of relationships, along with depicting reasons why women in our country choose a certain family to get married to, rather than an individual.
The sequences about the coffee estate are atmospheric and transport the readers to a different world. The author also succeeds in contrasting the various worlds of Alka — her childhood days, her college days and later the years spent on the coffee estate, each capturing a different timeline and a different side to the same character.
The ending of the story may not appeal to everyone, especially if the reader is hoping for an ideal one. Alka as a character is flawed, humane and realistic, and is like any of us, so the decisions she makes in the climax are not about giving out a message but about what she thought is her right.
Pick this one if stories centered around human and family emotions interest you.
My rating:
4/5.