Born Confused

There aren't a great many of Asian consciousness fiction novels. I wasn't expecting Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier to be excellent, but it surprised me in being quite good. Granted, parts of the book were somewhat shallow although considering that this is about teenage girls, (not that all of them are shallow it wasn't overly surprising.

Dimple seems to be rather fortunate in her parental lottery not necessarily just because she has a whole family as is pointed out in the book, but because of her parents' openness and a certain amount of flexibility in their thinking.

I do think that the novel runs a bit longer than it needed to. It will probably not reach the heights of the joy luck club and is certainly not as serious, but it's a book that weaves the clash and confusion of two different cultures for a more modern feel. Modern day clash seems to be less dire although it still exists and this novel achieves that tone well.