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ellemwan's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Medical content, and Dementia
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Abandonment
Minor: Body shaming, Physical abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
writtenontheflyleaves's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi ✏️
🌟🌟🌟🌟
✏️ The plot: Antara's mother Tara is forgetting things. They've never had a good relationship and now not only does Tara need Antara's help, but she doesn't remember the cruelties she inflicted upon her daughter that make her so bitter towards her. As her mother's memory frays, so does Antara's grip on her own identity, and she becomes aware of how heavily she and her mother rely on each other to know themselves.
Burnt Sugar was a mixed bag. It's an apt title for what is a very bitter love story between a mother and daughter, and I think there's something very truthful in the double bind Antara is in throughout. I think it's often in the relationships where we feel the deepest love and need for the other person that we also feel the strongest resentment and anger towards them, and Doshi conveyed that brilliantly, and in gorgeous prose. I really wanted to love it.
But, if I'm being honest, I didn't love it, or at least not all of it. At the start, the narration felt kind of detached and resigned, which worked well for the character but as a reader it felt a bit like the usual bored-sounding literary fiction stuff. Once I got to read more about Tara's youth and Antara's childhood, I became deeply invested, finally feeling like I got a sense of what they meant to each other - then I was spat out of it again at the end, back into Antara's problems with her husband and a pregnancy that didn't totally make sense to me except as a conclusion to the themes of the book. There's something real and alive in this novel that I loved, I just lost the thread of it I think.
✏️ Read it if you like to read about complicated parental relationships and particularly how mothers and daughters shape each other's identities. The descriptions of the setting in Pune, India are also super vivid.
🚫 Avoid if pregnancy, childhood abuse and neglect, and dementia are themes you're avoiding in your reading right now, and if you want a sliver of hope to emerge out of themes of bitterness and anger!
🌟🌟🌟🌟
✏️ The plot: Antara's mother Tara is forgetting things. They've never had a good relationship and now not only does Tara need Antara's help, but she doesn't remember the cruelties she inflicted upon her daughter that make her so bitter towards her. As her mother's memory frays, so does Antara's grip on her own identity, and she becomes aware of how heavily she and her mother rely on each other to know themselves.
Burnt Sugar was a mixed bag. It's an apt title for what is a very bitter love story between a mother and daughter, and I think there's something very truthful in the double bind Antara is in throughout. I think it's often in the relationships where we feel the deepest love and need for the other person that we also feel the strongest resentment and anger towards them, and Doshi conveyed that brilliantly, and in gorgeous prose. I really wanted to love it.
But, if I'm being honest, I didn't love it, or at least not all of it. At the start, the narration felt kind of detached and resigned, which worked well for the character but as a reader it felt a bit like the usual bored-sounding literary fiction stuff. Once I got to read more about Tara's youth and Antara's childhood, I became deeply invested, finally feeling like I got a sense of what they meant to each other - then I was spat out of it again at the end, back into Antara's problems with her husband and a pregnancy that didn't totally make sense to me except as a conclusion to the themes of the book. There's something real and alive in this novel that I loved, I just lost the thread of it I think.
✏️ Read it if you like to read about complicated parental relationships and particularly how mothers and daughters shape each other's identities. The descriptions of the setting in Pune, India are also super vivid.
🚫 Avoid if pregnancy, childhood abuse and neglect, and dementia are themes you're avoiding in your reading right now, and if you want a sliver of hope to emerge out of themes of bitterness and anger!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, Dementia, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Sexual content
waybeyondblue's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Dementia, and Sexual harassment
lunar_witch's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, and Pregnancy
millieh404's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
informative
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Dementia
tieganljohnston's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Child abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Colonisation
musewithxara's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Moderate: Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Vomit, and Dementia
Minor: Rape
lottelow's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Dementia
Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Toxic relationship
time4reading's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
“We actively make memories, you know. And we make them together. We remake memories, too, in the image of what other people remember.”
In Burnt Sugar, Avni Doshi explores how we build and maintain relationships as Antara supports her mother Tara as memory slips away and dementia takes hold.
For me, Burnt Sugar was a deeply unsettling read. It starts as a conventional story of a daughter dealing with the onset of Alzheimer’s in a parent. It includes the flashbacks you’d expect in that kind of narrative. But as mother Tara loses her memories and Antara explores her own, the boundaries between past and present, mother and daughter, real and imagined become increasingly blurry and we find ourselves uncertain of what we can trust.
If you’ve been close to someone as dementia has progressed, this book may evoke familiar feelings about the fickleness of memory. When suddenly the person who you’ve shared a memory with no longer remembers it or does so in a completely mangled fashion, you start to question the solidity of what you thought was an indisputable fact. If our relationships are built through shared experiences, what’s left when the memories start to break down, fall apart, or become unrecognizable? What is lost and what is revealed?
Having had a parent with dementia, I recognized that feeling of having a parent who is there but not there. That feeling of being adrift, of being unsure of the future but also increasingly insecure in the past. When their grasp on reality slips, the reverberations shake yours as well. The responsibilities of care-giving hone down our feelings to their very roots. As the person you knew ceases to exist, you’re forced to face what you know and how you feel and it haunts every moment of your day. Doshi has captured the overwhelming, claustrophobic burden of care and memory in a story I won’t soon forget.
I can definitely understand why Burnt Sugar was on the Booker Prize short list. It’s a powerful exploration of what happens when the carer roles switch in a parent-child relationship. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to talk to someone about it when you finish.
Although it was nominated for The Booker Prize last summer it’s just now being released in North America (this coming Tuesday). Many thanks to Abrams Books and NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, and Dementia
penelopereads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Can’t make up my mind about this book. It’s uh... transgressive. I was filled with a sense of dread reading it. It’s grimy.
The storytelling is good though and you name it - the author went there. The writing also stopped me in my tracks a few times.
Still, I don’t really know what to think. Is it really bad or really good? Someone please tell me where I should land.
The storytelling is good though and you name it - the author went there. The writing also stopped me in my tracks a few times.
Still, I don’t really know what to think. Is it really bad or really good? Someone please tell me where I should land.
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Excrement, Vomit, and Dementia