Book: The Arithmetic of Breasts and Other Stories
Author: Rochelle Potkar
Pages: 168
Read On: Kindle
How Long it Took Me To Read: 4 hours
Plot Summary: This cluster of 7½ literary short stories presents to you the romantic-sexual facets of:
Narain who lusts for Munika, hypnotized by her bosom in The Arithmetic of Breasts, and old Jaganlal who wants a favour from young Dia in The Room with a Sea-view.
Jackie who is in love with Nic in Sky Park, and the surgeon in Dr. Love who is changing much more than Sneha’s hairline, nose, lip and chin.
Shonali and Neel who are realizing that infidelity might not be such an easy thing in The Scent of a Conscience, and a woman who walks the tight rope between tradition and sexual exploitation in A place they call Scary.
And Sunil who meets the woman of his desires in What Men Want through an adult dating site.
Through these stories, Rochelle Potkar explores the intensely personal ‘unrelationship’ that exists alongside its conventional and socially articulate twin, the relationship.
General Thoughts: This book was sent to me by the author for an honest review. The book was sent to me for free but the thoughts are my own...as always.
The premise of this book sounded interesting and I am always game to try the works of new writers and especially short stories. I want to read more short story collections and I was immediately interested in reading this book.
Things I Liked:
1. The writing was good and a pleasure to read.
2. The stories though all centered around the same theme- love, relationships and sex- are all diverse and different.
3. This is a quick read that is perfect if you are looking to read something in one sitting.
4. The lengths of the stories are pretty interesting, some are a slightly longer while others are mere vignettes into someone's life and time.
5. The stories are all very intense and intricate and full of very finely etched characters.
Things I Didn't Like:
The book has a lot going for it. Decent writing and very interesting stories and characters that are memorable...but overall I didn't really fall in love with the book and it's stories. The writing though good was very, very vague in parts and I am not sure I got the point of them. I appreciated the writing but it wasn't the most enjoyable reading experience. Let's just say this wasn't a book for me.
Rating: 2.5/5
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