Oleander Girl

April 1, 2013
An engaged woman in a traditional Indian family discovers harrowing secrets about her birth parents in the latest from Divakaruni (after 2010's One Amazing Thing). As her mother died in childbirth, Korobi Roy was raised by her grandparents, who led her to believe her father died in an accident. But after becoming engaged to the wealthy son of art dealers, Korobi's protective grandfather has a sudden heart attack and the truth about her paternity emerges, leading her on a controversial quest across the world to find a birth father she believes to be alive. While abroad and encountering American culture for the first time, jealousy and fear emerge in her fiance's family, threatening the perfect future she had secured for herself. A simplistic read with flat dialogue and uninspired description, this is a novel where plot reigns supreme, perhaps seconded by character development that would be more engaging if not surrounded by cliched prose ("Perhaps their hands had touched and she had shyly smiled..."). Though racial, cultural and religious tensions are presented, the lack of originality in narrative form prevents emergent discussion. Divakaruni is not at her best here, and has given us a read best suited for the beach or conversion into a daytime television show.

January 15, 2013
Although her heroine travels to the United States to unravel family secrets, the heart of Divakaruni's cross-cultural novel (One Amazing Thing, 2010, etc.) lies in contemporary Kolkata, India. Orphaned in infancy, 18-year-old Korobi (the name for Oleander) has been raised in a cocoon of privilege and protectiveness by her devoted maternal grandparents. They have told Korobi little about her parents, but she has found and cherishes a love letter she assumes was written by her mother to her dead father shortly after she was born. Korobi has recently become engaged to Rajat Bose, a far more sophisticated, modern young man whose family owns art galleries in Kolkata and New York City. Korobi's life seems perfect. But then Korobi's grandfather, a stern traditionalist, collapses at the formal engagement party. After his death, Korobi's grandmother acknowledges some bitter truths: Not only is Korobi's father alive, an African-American whom Korobi's mother met while studying at Berkley, but he and Korobi's mother were not yet married when Korobi's mother died. Despite the potential scandal that she is illegitimate and half African-American, Rajat still wants to marry Korobi, but she becomes obsessed with finding her father before marrying. Although his patience is understandably strained, Rajat stands behind Korobi's decision to travel alone to America for a month on her quest. In America, the innocent--to the point of being naive--Korobi faces challenges she has never imagined and takes increasing control of her life as she searches for clues about her father with the help of a kindly Indian private detective. She and Rajat, who has shielded her from his own worries about his family's increasing financial problems since 9/11, begin to drift apart. She is tempted by a new attraction; he is pursued by a former lover. Both must find a balance between old and new values. Surrounded by diverting secondary characters, Korobi herself is so self-absorbed that it is hard not to feel sorry for long-suffering Rajat. Like an Indian Maeve Binchy, Divakaruni offers an entertaining if lightweight comfort read.

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Starred review from February 15, 2013

Korobi Roy is a sheltered young Hindu woman from Kolkata. Soon after she becomes engaged to Rajat Bose, the scion of a wealthy family, Korobi learns that the father she believed dead is actually alive in the United States. When she flies to the States to find her father, a complicated series of events unravels the smug assurance of her fiance's family, exposing the flaws and the strengths of the people around her. Divakaruni, who has examined the lives of Indian women living in the United States in works like The Arranged Marriage and Mistress of Spices, introduces a cast of characters who defy their stereotypes. Korobi's ideal sacrificing grandmother has secrets of her own. Asif Ali, the Boses' Muslim chauffeur, is much more than a humble servant. Bhattacharya, an ambitious politician, has a heart; and Rajat's little sister, Pia, has amazing courage. VERDICT Exploring the United States and India in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Divakaruni has crafted a beautiful, complex story in which caste, class, religion, and race are significant factors informing people's world views.--Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2013
Orphaned at birth, Korobi (Bengali for oleander ) always wondered why her mother named her after a beautiful but poisonous plant. By the dramatic conclusion of this utterly transfixing novel, she finds out, and we are left whirling in the wake of Divakaruni's (One Amazing Thing, 2010) newest penetrating tale. An entrancing storyteller with an unerring moral compass, Divakaruni has created a superbly well-plotted, charming, yet hard-hitting novel of family, marriage, and class, a veritable Indian Jane Austen novel spiked with racial prejudice and religious violence. Raised in Kolkata by her sweet if burdened grandmother and her grandfather, a famous and irascible lawyer, Korobi is a modest, smart, and unworldly college student when she meets wealthy, stylish, and jaded Rajat. Much to the surprise of his high-society friends and the horror of his megarich ex-lover, Rajat proposes to quiet, unhip Korobi, who feels as though she has stepped into a fairy tale, cuing us to expect tragedy. But there is no anticipating the complexities and implications of the crises and obstacles Korobi and Rajat face in light of Korobi's resolute quest for the truth about her father as she journeys across harshly xenophobic post-9/11 America. From baneful secrets, poisonous misunderstandings and conflicts, and transcendent love, Divakaruni has forged another tender, wise, and resonant page-turner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)