The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Fun prose and interesting characters. The racism is unfortunately representative of the time.

Pathos just doesn't do it for me. I started this book a couple of months ago, abandoned it after 40 pages because of its depressing lack of humanity, then picked it up again today because (almost) everything deserves a second chance. I finished it, but I'm not sure I'd encourage anyone else to. It's just... bleak. I know the author tries to paint in some redemption, some self-discovery, but it falls flat.

(Aside: romanticizing life in a third-world country doesn't do it for me either.)

I liked the premise of this book - I mean, why not open a retirement home in India? My problem what that the ensemble of characters was too big. I had Ravi and Dr. Rama mixed up for a long time, and Evelyn and Madge and Muriel all run together. The book didn't give me enough touchstones to distinguish the characters from one another. I kept thinking we would follow the story of one or two characters, and then the story line would switch to someone else. It was too distracting for my tastes.