Antara is a middle class Indian woman. Her husband, Dilip, is an American Indian (no, not one of those) who was sent by his company to Pune despite hardly speaking a word of Hindi and breaking his rotis with two hands. What had been a very happy, westernised relationship is now transformed by the arrival of Antara's senile mother and the imminent arrival of a baby. Antara is less than thrilled by her change in circumstances as she explains to readers in sassy, sarcastic tones. 

Antara loathes her mother, but she is honour bound to support her. The mother - Tara to her daughter's Un-tara - seems to have made curious decisions in the past. Antara was sent to a strict school run by nuns. Tara separated from her wealthy husband and became a beggar outside the Club - that haven of the middle classes. Tara joined the Ashram and wore white, despite not being in mourning. Antara resents this, and resents the intrusion Tara is making on her now comfortable life as a conceptual artist. 

The real strength of the novel is Antara's voice. She is self-entitled, whining, rude, ungrateful and hilarious. She may well have cause for complaint, but her petulance in putting that view across gives the reader a strange sense of schadenfreude. The legitimacy of her complaints is further undermined as the reader gradually discovers the appalling way she has behaved as an adult. There are vignette like chapters - almost like Slumdog Millionaire - with each one offering a different facet of life in India, spanning the social classes. There are real, compassionate characters in the novel. But always, there is Antara's voice. 

Burnt Sugar is not a long novel and it is tempting to start all over again to extract every drop of brilliance from this novel that starts so sweetly and becomes so bitter.

A story about families that , on the one hand submerged me in a different environment and on the other showed the universality of such experience

Aristotle once said and I quote, "For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors". Avni Doshi's 'Burnt Sugar' is the epitome of pain and beauty ignited in the modern era of writing.

The amount of depth this novel shared cannot be measured.
Apart from the style of wording, this book gave me vibes of Rabindranath Tagore's writings and a fan of Rabindranath Tagore would surely agree.

The story revolves around a relationship between a Daughter; Antara and her mother; Tara whom situations made toxic. Being toxic is a state that can be controlled but given the absurd circumstances we fail to see the intoxicity and accept the poisonous Virtual-Reality.

Doshi conveyed this story in such a way that an arrow stakes right through one's heart after the novel is completed. This book is the definition of the oxymoron: beautifully-painful.

Before reading a book I always look for it's blurb and reviews on it. It was sad to see how few people gave it negatively marked comments. Seeing the delicacy of the plot and story-telling being ignored and the only thing which is considered is the toxic relationship breaks my heart. Because, it is heart rending to see how shallow damages are cared for more than for deep wounds.

An excellent read with great introspection over certain things. A must have for readers who consider deep stories more than light plots.

Mother - daughter issues. Love, betrayal, illness, always in search to find self.
Shocking punch in a gut.

Raw, dark and very well written debut novel.

A dark tale set in contemporary India about a young woman who takes in her ageing mother who has started to experience memory loss. As the story unfolds we discover their fraught relationship and how neglectful Antara's mother was when she was growing up - at one point choosing to become a beggar, chasing inappropriate men - Tara's memory loss brings back these memories for her daughter.

This isn't what I'd call an enjoyable read but there's clearly a lot of skill at work here, both in the crafting of the story and the writing itself. Recommended, but this isn't for the faint of heart.

If I could describe Burnt Sugar in one word, it would be shocking.

I learned about this book because I heard about the author at a literary festival and we got the chance to briefly meet. I knew that the book is about being a woman, and the struggles that came with it. However, I was not prepared for what this book actually was.

Written in the first person point of view, the book follows the protagonist, Antara-who appears to be in her 30s-through her journey trying to figure herself out while hustling through her life. The writing is sharp and urgent, which is a beautiful reflection of Antara's mindset and the struggles she's going through. She has a mom who suffers from memory loss, whom she takes care for. She marries a man and has duties of being a wife. Deep down, she's also an artist at heart who is trying to fulfill her career. There are also certain cultural and religious expectations set out on her life. When all these things are put together, Antara copes in unconventional ways and they're all valid.

What really resonated with me are the themes of trying to understand oneself even when you're an adult, trying to fight for the things that make you happy. But at the same time, what really is happy? Who defines it? Is it us? Is it our circumstances? Is it both? These are questions that you might not really find an answer to, but the author masterfully weaved all these themes together through the life and actions of Antara.

The last few pages were a punch to the gut with how emotional they were, and I'm sure the author put a lot of heart into it.

I don't know, somehow the book reminded me of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. They're not alike whatsoever, but perhaps the themes of identity and belonging made those parallels.

This is a solid debut, and I think it's an interesting read about understanding oneself.

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi is about a difficult relationship between a mother and daughter both in the present when the daughter is dealing with her ageing mother’s memory problems and in the past when they faced conflict as she was growing up.

This a debut novel by an exciting new Indian-American author now living in Dubai. The novel is set in India and follows a mother/daughter relationship during the course of the mother declining into dementia. The daughter whose perspective we follow endured neglect and abuse at the hand of her mother and now finds herself faced with a mother who cannot remember the past and her own potential to become abusive. None of the characters in the book is nice, some said the main character's husband was nice. Hm, I guess it depends on your definition of nice. All relationships are problematic and painful and at times this was absolutely unbearable to read and if I am honest I am not quite sure what kept me going. It was a good debut, but just left me emotionally stranded not knowing what to make of it at all.

The story is about a strained relationship between a mother & daughter,  The mother has always been a rebel of sorts, doing things her way, different from the others, the daughter having difficulty understanding her mother. I found this book really difficult to read. The story is well written, felt a lot like a rant.  It does feel very real in certain parts, so for those who have a strained relationship with their mother, I'd read this book with caution.

The story is full of promise and the theme of the relationship between a daughter and her aging and dying mother is absolutely up my alley. "Burnt Sugar"'s narrative structure is fairly fluid, which makes for a compelling character, as she contemplates on her past and present situation, however, I was just not being as engrossed in this book as I expected to.

Burnt Sugar, Avni Doshi’s portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship is gripping, taut, and beautifully written. 
Exploring betrayal, love, and duplicity, the mother-daughter relationship grapples with identity, what it means to be a mother and a daughter, and the emotional difficulties of dealing with a parent ageing. 
Through a series of flashbacks, Antara grapples with her mother’s decisions and the largely negative impact they had on her own upbringing. Reflections on class, betrayal, and relationships show that family dynamics are never far from complications.

I absolutely loved this book, even though it kept punching me in the gut. The relationship between the two women, mother and daughter, is so complex and raw. Being absolutely maddening and harrowing at times, yet still so poignant. It is written so beautifully and the prose is so vivid and emotional. Each character is so well fleshed out it feels like I could be reading a memoir at times. It’s so realistic, sometimes too realistic in the mother-daughter relationship that I had to take a break from reading as it got just too emotional for me.

The story deals with a lot of things, but the main themes I felt running through it were grief, neglect, obsession and betrayal, and the complicated ways both women display, enact or hide these feelings and experiences. It’s rare that a book can elicit all of these often scary emotions whilst still keeping you coming back. This is a new favourite.

I’d recommend Burnt Sugar to people who have strained or complex relationships with their parents, especially women with their mothers, who are looking for a cathartic examination of these strained relationships. Take care when reading through, as it can get Too Real at times. Even if you don’t share these strained relationships in real life, I’d still recommend giving this book a try, it is so beautiful and honestly written that I think everyone could appreciate a part of it in their own way. Out 30 July 2020 from Hamish Hamilton.

The story explores a complicated relationship, between mother-daughter. While at every turn the narrator, daughter,let's the reader know how she feels about her mother,she hardly scrapes the surface of why she feels so.  
That's the reason why I found the story to be indulgent, incomplete and bit of a rant. 

The story is literally set in the part of the world I live in and I couldn't even connect with that part. 30% in and I skipped the whole sort and read the last 5% and did not feel like I missed most of the book. 1 star for the effort of this diary like narration.

Disclaimer - I received a free digital download of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The book seems to gravitate around a mother-daughter relationship full of toxic emotions and abuse. What happens when the abuser starts to forget and the abused is left with nothing but the hateful memories and a woman she barely recognises. 

Will she let go of her past animosity and take her mother as she is now, letting go of all the built up emotions inside of her or will her hate consume her and her interactions with her ailing guardian. 

We follow the story of Antara through the complexities of her relationship with her mother growing up and the current day version of her mother slowly loosing her mind to Alzheimer’s. Then on to the daughter becoming a mother herself. Its a powerful read that encourages you to look at humanity and the nuances of relationships and how actions alter the eb and flow of all interactions. 

I think it also casts a thoughtful eye on what it’s like to have a family member with Alzheimer’s and the emotional rollercoaster associated with their derailment into loss of cognitive ability. An interesting read to say the least.

This is a book about horrible things, things that the majority of us would much prefer to look away from and pretend we don't see, and the kind of things that we hope will never happen to us in the course of our lifetimes. Our children are not under obligation to love us, but as parents, is there an obligation to love our children? This book looks at the relationship between a mother and daughter, but not a normal, healthy one. Instead, it examines a relationship laced with bitterness, hatred, competitiveness, and resentment, all of which awkwardly hold hands with the love that we believe is obliged to exist between a mother and daughter. 

The atmosphere is created to be very heavy and reading this book feels like walking on eggshells in the sense that every single move made by the main character may result in her mother snapping. The revolving door of her mother's emotions makes her constantly vulnerable, not just to attack but to attacks so vicious and from someone who is meant to be so trustworthy that it makes it all the harder. Caring for her mother in the throes of dementia and having to take on the carer role to someone who was not the best of carers to her as a child is a bitter pill to swallow- especially in the face of her mother's pushback. 

The prose in this book is vicious and it does not pull any punches- it is borne from a place of what seems like rage, and in a way, that's something we don't see enough of. Yes, it's horrible, but at the same time, these are real narratives. There are parents who do little else but tear their children down in the worst possible ways, and cause their rebellion, and then become unsure themselves as to how to approach parenthood. There is a lot to pick from this book and to analyse, and so it's well worth a look, but especially so if you want to look at how toxicity can worm its way into the bones of children and sit there, corroding them from the inside out, into adulthood and beyond.

A searing debut novel about an obsessive, destructive mother-daughter relationship. The book begins with Antara’s realisation that her mother is losing her mind to Alzheimer’s. With her loss of memory comes a relinquishing of accountability, and Antara confides frustratedly that she has ‘no way to baste her in guilt’. As her mother’s grip of the past fades, so too does Antara’s - memory is a collective exercise, and the retelling of childhood too easily becomes a well-trodden battleground between mother and daughter. In the midst of one argument, Antara ‘for a moment think[s] she is mouthing my words as I say them. Have we said these exact sentences to each other before?’ Remembrance can be a child’s way of enacting revenge, and rebalancing the powerlessness of youth. Antara revisits her mother’s abuses, all the worse for its lack of intentionality. Her mother, in her self-absorption and selfishness, never planned to hurt her daughter - she just didn’t care enough not to. This is a beautiful portrayal of ugly people and the cruelties inseparable from love, a book from which you come away with a bit of grit on you. #

I hate not finishing any book, and it feels particularly awkward not to do so when I have had the opportunity to read a review copy.  So I have spent a couple of weeks trying to fall in love with Burnt Sugar.  But unfortunately I just can't get in to it. 

The story is full of promise - the exploration of a daughter's relationship with her aging, perhaps dying, mother, and how that relationship impacts on the daughter's connections with other family members past and present.  The narrative structure is fairly fluid - one really gets the sense of being in the daughter's head as thoughts come and go - some about the practicalities of the present; others about how she ended up with the life she has now.

But for some reason I just could not click with this one.  Please don't let this put anyone else off - try it for yourself.  I am not criticising the book - it's just that it was not for me.  Hey, we can't all like everything, can we?

With thanks to the publisher, Penguin Random House UK, for a review copy via NetGalley

This is an interesting novel to review. The mother/daughter relationship that we follow throughout this course of the novel is certainly intriguing. I liked the way both depended on and simultaneously despised the other. I also enjoyed the frankness of the narrator's thoughts and actions, which are often jarring and unexpected. 

There were several other relationships explored throughout the novel, but somehow, none of the other characters apart from the narrator really ‘came alive.’ Whilst we had backgrounds to some characters, I felt by the end that I still didn’t really know or care about some of them. 

The narrator herself had an obviously complex personality and was intriguing, but not altogether likeable. Often, she is consumed by animosity for herself and others, which resulted in a narrative that was often self-centred and lacking in a thorough exploration of other characters.

This novel explores some interesting and complex themes, but they were presented as partially formed thoughts rather than a deep deluge into their personalities. 

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks to NetGalley and Hamish Hamilton for the opportunity to read this book.

I liked but didn’t love this novel. The difficult mother daughter relationship that it follows held my interest, and I finished reading quite quickly, but I also didn’t particularly like or relate to either the daughter, who narrates the novel in first person, or her mother. I also felt that some of the personality traits of the narrator (her artistic focus on drawing rather than painting, her sexual encounters with her female friend, for example) are flagged as important without being properly explained or interrogated.