Beastmomma

I am very slow with completing books during this LAST year of law school while I am in the midst of wedding planning and daydreaming about making my life in a new state and figuring out how to find and create my dream job, so I thought that it would be fun to have a progress report of my reading. This is an online reading group where all the participants set aside time to read every Sunday and blog about the experience.

This weekend, Partner to-be is visiting me and we both enjoy reading together.  What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin continues to drawn me in and has made it tough for me to break away from it to do some school reading.  You can read my previous two postings for the Sunday Salon about this selection here and here.

This morning (and really this whole week), I have been following Roop (one of the main character's adventures) as she adjusts to life in her new husband's home.  She is the second wife and has given birth to a girl.  I cannot imagine becoming a mother at seventeen and then having my baby taken from me to my husband's other wife.  Even though I am most sympathetic to the character of Roop because her story is the one that the author has shared with us the most during the first part of the book, I find myself sympathetic to the first wife and even a little bit to Roop's husband.  Of the three characters, my least favorite is Sadarji who is Roop's husband.   Through the stories of the three characters, the author gives us insight into the struggle of new India.  As India struggles to become independent from British rule, there are clashes between the traditional and the modern.  I think that Roop symbolizes that romanticism of traditional India.  Sadarji symbolizes the transition into modern without question.  Satya (the first wife) symbolizes the questioning of accepting the modern without critically thinking about the consequences.

I am reading this book for two challenges:

Chunkster Challenge

Orbis Teeravm Challenge 

I joined an in-person book club and over the next two weeks, I will be reading that selection. I may not be able to stay away from this book, though :)  A break may do me some good because I won't be obsessing over these characters or else my craving to know what happens may be stronger than ever!