Largely deserving all its accolades, Honor is a deeply moving work. Umrigar, a journalist and novelist, is clearly invested in exposing violence in India, much of it aimed at women, committed in the name of religion and tradition. Some aspects feel personal, as confirmed by an essay on her website. Despite this, I couldn’t give the book four stars, and here’s why:

The story begins with Shannon, a white American journalist recovering from a major surgery. Smita, a colleague and friend, cuts her vacation short to be by Shannon’s side. Indian-born Smita feels manipulated into finishing a story for Shannon, since she had vowed never to return to India. The relationships feel murky, especially with Nandini, who is Shannon’s translator, and Mohan, a male friend of some means. Ultimately, Shannon and Nandini feel unnecessary to the plot.

The second part shifts to Meena, a Hindu woman who in defiance of her community falls in love with and marries a Muslim man. The response from her family and village is horrific. As Smita takes over Shannon's story, she is tasked with interviewing Meena. Mohan, not a journalist, but simply a friend of Shannon’s, ends up as Smita’s translator and guide. Umrigar’s writing is at its best when telling Meena’s story—it’s poetic, poignant, and tender. However, Smita’s character, filled with dithering and logistical concerns, feels tedious, though when revealed her own backstory is revealed.

The third part intensifies, focusing on Meena’s harrowing ordeal, a section filled with distressing but crucial scenes. After a shocking climax to her story, Umrigar unfortunately, shifts to the romance between Smita and Mohan. I found this shift jarring. For me it took away Honor’s emotional gravity. The shift from Meena’s tragic narrative to a will-they-won’t-they romance undermined the emotional depth of Meena’s journey. Upon reading Umrigar’s essay, "Reclaiming Honor", I learned her intent was to contrast Meena’s choosing love regardless of the cost and Smita’s difficulty entertaining love even though doing so would be of no consequence to someone of her class/religion/status. All I can say is that the transition left me so frustrated I wanted to throw the book across the room.

In contrast, the book also features a deeper, more conflicted love story, i.e. the one between Smita and India. Her complex feelings for the country of her birth more befits the novel, and I appreciated the depiction of what had happened in Smita’s childhood to produce such complicated emotions in her.

So for me, ultimately this was a worthwhile read, and an important work, but I do give it less than a book of this caliber should merit. 3.75 stars ( )

Devastatingly well written. Beautifully tragic. Both awe-striking and awe-inspiring. The story highlights the injustices that exist in the world, and the individuals who are fighting these horrors and inequalities. This story led to such deep feelings of profound sadness and shame knowing that these stories exist not just in fiction. If you haven't given this book a read I highly highly recommend. ( )

The Short of It:

Weighty.

The Rest of It:

In Honor, Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena–a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man–Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. ~Indiebound

I was immediately pulled into this story. Meena’s story of abuse at the hands of her own brothers, was intense in the telling. Permanently disfigured by fire and ridiculed by the entire village for falling in love and marrying a Muslim man, proved to be too much for her to overcome. As unwelcome as she is, her young daughter, Abra is what keeps her there. Forced to live with a MIL who hates her for what happened to her son, the only thing that grounds her are the ethereal visits of her husband Abdul as he makes his presence known through dreams.

Smita, a journalist, returns to India to assist a colleague who is having hip surgery. Her entire motivation for going is to just help her colleague during recovery. India is not a place she ever wanted to return to. Too many memories of when her family was forced to leave when she was a child. But when she arrives, she finds out that Shannon wants her to pick up Meena’s story. That her time in India will not be spent navigating recovery, but interviewing Meena, the MIL, the brothers that caused her so much pain. This was not in the cards, but how can such a story go untold?

Smita’s time in India is wrought with unpleasant memories, difficult people, and reluctant witnesses. Her only saving grace is the man who Shannon brought in to help navigate the language barrier. Mohan’s kindness, common sense and loyalty to Smita and Shannon prove to be invaluable.

This was an easy story to fall into given the weighty subject matter but the ending! No spoilers but I was not prepared for the ending. It was like a slap to the face! Overall, to say that I “enjoyed” this story would be a real stretch but I found myself taken by the characters and the difficulty presenting itself as Meena’s story is told. It was chosen for my book club and I think there will be plenty to discuss. ( )

Honor, Thrity Umrigar, author; Sneha Maathan, narrator
Two women, from two different walks of life, Smita and Meena, find common ground to communicate with each other and form a bond, even as their worlds collide and their differences can never be reconciled. The contrasts are many. One comes from privilege and the other from abject poverty. One is educated and the other illiterate. One works happily as a journalist, and the other is forbidden to work and is punished for being employed. Yet, both are compatible, as the plight of the one is going to be published to enlighten the public and the world about the atrocities that are committed in the name of religion, in the name of honor, the definition of which is often corrupted from its intended meaning.
This author was born in India and emigrated to America, just like Smita, but at different times in history. Umrigar came in the 70’s to study, and this book begins around the mid 90’s, when Smita and her family sought a place of refuge from religious prejudice. Still, regardless of the timeline, injustice still exists in parts of the world, and the author exposes the underbelly of that corruption. It once lurked loudly in many corners of her home country.
In this novel, Meena, a Hindu, had the misfortune of falling in love with Abdul, a Muslim. This book is the story of their forbidden love, one so pure, we will all hope to have had it, or to have it someday, a love that crossed the lines of what was acceptable. In their villages, villages that were backward and ruled by religious fundamentalists, the zealots worked their followers into a frenzy, calling on them to do unspeakable things when they felt dishonored.
Meena and Abdul met at the factory, a place Meena had been forbidden to work at by her brothers, although they happily stole her earnings which was considered theirs, since she, as a female, was entitled to nothing. She worked there to protect her sister who had been the one who insisted on working there. Abdul was different than most men; he treated Meena with enormous respect, even allowing her to taste food before he did, something no Hindu would do in her village. So, their love grew as the shameful behavior of her brothers grew. They believed Meena’s behavior was humiliating them in front of the other village men. The village elder agreed. He was a despicable person who believed in his own power, natural and supernatural, and he used it to control the villagers. As Smita pursues the investigation for her article, she witnesses the abuse Meena is forced to endure. At the same time, she begins to grow close to her companion, interpreter and guide, Mohan, a privileged Parsi (like the author, who was also a Parsi). Is their love acceptable? It seems that she too has found an unusual, sensitive man who respects women. The outcome of both these loves will be totally different.
The narrator who read this novel was excellent. She captured the spirit and importance of each scene, and each character was portrayed so authentically, that the book played out in the theater of my mind as if I was viewing a stage production. Umrigar has truly captured man’s inhumanity to man, but she has coupled it with man's ultimate humanity, as well. While she clearly illustrates that violence pursued in the name of G-d, is not G-dly, but rather is abhorrent, she finds ways to point out other moments in which the characters rise above their human failures to shine with boldness and goodness, lending justice to the use of the term honor.
Privilege does not make one worthy, character does, and the author has shown that Meena has the character and common sense to be a most worthy human being, and like all those who are poor or victims of circumstances stemming from fundamentalist religious beliefs or superstition, are deserving of decent lives and respect, and not of being tormented and punished or ridiculed. Meena was the perfect spokeswoman. Her words were genuine and heartfelt.
In this book, the author has explored the contrasts between the religious and temporal, sophistication and simplicity, elites vs commoners, and privileged vs the underprivileged on every page. In some cases, right and wrong , legal and illegal, retribution and reward, all depend on how money changes hands and on what religious group has more power. In India, a country of caste and division, we witness a place of contradictions. The Taj Mahal and the major cities are in stark contrast to the villages where the illiterate and poverty-stricken manage to eke out a meager existence, where women, like chattel, follow the rules of the men, their traditions and their culture closely. Women exist to cook, clean and birth babies. Women did as they were told, or they suffered the consequences. Men controlled everything, even what belonged to the women no longer belonged to them, but to their male siblings or husbands.
While this way of life exists today, it is rare, but there are places where religion and honor conflict with reality. In an interview, Umrigar stated that she feared the world was going backward not forward. She refers to the previous administration. She believes the progress made in the last couple of decades may be in the process of reversal. As a witness to the events of those decades she writes about, and the current one, I disagree with her. In her book, she has Anjelie (a lawyer who represented Meena in the murder case), and Smita, questioning whether or not they are purveyors of “poverty porn”, just to get headlines. Are they achieving their goal of enlightening the world to the problems women face that will encourage meaningful change? In some way, is not the author, Umrigar, with her books, not doing the same thing. When a character in this novel compares an unjustified horrible and heinous religious act, resulting in the murder of its victim, to a policeman who may have justifiably shot an unarmed black man resisting arrest, it gave me pause. Was this the author’s need to pass on her political viewpoint in a novel that had nothing to do with it. The two events had no comparison or common ground, and its inclusion diminished that moment in the book.
During an interview with Kabir Bhatia, at the the Hudson Library and Historical Society that is available on utube, I heard her say that the election of Trump appalled her. It concerned Trump’s dislike of the terrorism of religious zealots. Did that mean he disliked the religion of the zealot or the race of the terrorist? I think not. Thus, some of her examples gave away her political predilection, and perhaps not the reality to all people. I searched for an interview to find out if the incident mentioned stemmed from a real event that contained those words, but found none. It does not mean it does not exist, but that I could not find it.
Absent the mention of racism in America and the intimation of her dislike of Trump, both of which were totally out of place, for me, I would have given it five stars. There are moments in this book when it will be hard to go on, because the content is about incredible arrogance, injustice and brutality, but the book needs to be read to open other minds to the need to put an end to such behavior. ( )

I listened to this on MP3 CD all day yesterday, which was eleven and a half hours. I feel like I have had an incredible experience. Smita, an American Indiana journalist rushes to her co-worker's side. She thought that she was being called to comfort her during an emergency hip replacement surgery in Mumbai. But her friend wants her to step in and finish covering a story about Hindu woman who own family burned her husband to death and badly burned her out of honor. The woman, Meena had been pulled into working away from home by her sister to support their family, She reluctantly meets with a Muslim man who declares his love for her after watching her helping others at the factory.

While at the hospital, Smita meets a Mohan, an associate of her co-worker who acts as a translater and as person with insight into the local culture, a relationship slowly and guarded develops between Smita and Mohan. Smita decides to tell Mohan about her family escape from India long ago. Mohan is from a rich glass maker family. He falls for Smita and ts to be with her for the rest of his life.

There is a child, Abu, which means Honor from the marriage of Meena and Abdul, the most tragic marriage that I have ever read about.

This is a very emotional story, one of religious prejudice, murder, joy, extreme terror. It is the best one from Thrity Umrigar that I have read and I hope that every one reads it. ( )

Tells the tale of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide.
Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to clever a story, it reluctantly: l9ng ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of. Elena-a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and family for marrying a Muslim man-Smita’s comes face to face with a society where traditioncarries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past.
The story shows how two women can remain true to their homeland and to themselves at the same time. ( )

A weird but true way to describe this book is a beautiful approach to the horrific, the story unfolds in a way that makes you feel so deeply. ( )

3.5⭐️

“Abru.
It means Honor.”

Meena Mustafa’s husband Abdul was burnt alive by her brothers in an attack that left a side of her face disfigured and left hand permanently damaged - an ‘honor killing’ as punishment meted out for the crime of marrying inter faith. Meena , a Hindu, fell in love with Abdul , a Muslim, leaving her home to be with him , an act that is viewed as dishonorable by her family and community. Four months of marriage ends in tragedy for Meena who was then pregnant with her daughter who she names Abru, Meena ,having survived because of the intervention of her brother-in-law who has since absconded fearing for his own life, goes against the wishes of mother-in-law and with the help of a lawyer ,who is fighting her case pro bono, reopens the case against her brothers and is now awaiting the verdict. Meena is aware of the deep seated corruption and potential danger she is up against but does not shy away from fighting her case in the honor of her husband’s memory and for the sake of her daughter so that she would grow up knowing that her mother did her best to fight for justice.

Indian American journalist Smita travels to India to continue the coverage of Meena’s story as a favor to a colleague ,Shannon, who is recuperating from surgery. Accompanied by Mohan, a friend of Shannon, who acts as translator and mediator and coordinating with Anjali , Meena’s lawyer, she travels to Meena’s marital home to meet her where she is a social pariah among her neighbors on account of fear and communal bias, She then travels to Meena’s native village to meet her brothers, who have been roaming freely after the charges were initially dropped, and the rich, powerful and unscrupulous village head who orchestrated the whole incident and is brazenly confident of the verdict being ruled in the their favor.

Smita is settled in the United States, but her family was once based in Mumbai with her having spent the first 14 years of her life there. While acknowledging that India is a country of rich culture and knowledge with an economy that is growing in leaps and bounds , in Meena she bears witness to the plight of less fortunate women in rural India stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty, lack of infrastructure and education and the influence of men acting as God in their own little kingdoms with little or no interference from local law enforcement . Having traveled the world on various assignments she has covered events associated with power struggles, poverty , religious intolerance and violence against women. But now she feels unable to deny her roots and it is this pull she feels that prevents her from treating this assignment and in turn Meena in the objective or dispassionate manner her profession demands. Her experience becomes a personal one which in turn forces her to recall the traumatic incidents that prompted her own family to migrate to the United States over twenty years ago . Smita (and the reader) is compelled to draw parallels. The stark contrast of their lives and the life altering impact of their respective ordeals are revealed through a powerful narrative that will keep you engaged till the every end.

In Honor, the author delves into a social issue headlining Indian and international news media- honor killings. The vivid descriptions from the Mumbai coastline to the bullet ridden walls of the Leopold Café (that bear witness to the terrorist attacks of November 26, 2008) and the street markets of Colaba to the rural countryside and rough terrain of Birwad and Vithalgaon are so beautifully penned that you feel like you are sharing Smita’s journey. But the romantic track was unnecessary (with its Indian movie style love story) and lessened impact of what could have been a more powerful novel.I have read several of Thrity Umrigar’s novels in the past and I feel Honor would deserve a place amongst her very best if it were not for the ending, with the author shifting focus onto Meena and Mohan's relationship.

However, it is a hard-hitting , evocative and compelling novel. The author has exhibited considerable restraint and respect while dealing with a sensitive topic. Not an easy read but when a story revolves around social evil, it is not meant to be. It is unfortunate when the very men who believe in upholding the honor, values and beliefs of a particular caste, creed or religion fail to comprehend that as human beings there is no honor in intolerance and discrimination, there is no honor in communal hatred and there is certainly no honor in violence fueled by that hatred. At the risk of sounding preachy, I will say that as one of many women who can confidently claim to have had it better , the question we can ask ourselves and act upon is what we can actually do for women who are not as fortunate.
“Smita herself had repeated the platitudes about the humanizing effects of literature and narrative journalism, how each medium cultivated empathy in readers. But toward what end?" ( )

Storyof a journalist who investigates the murder of a muslim man by the brothers of this hindu wife. This book was difficult to read at times, the Indian culture is a difficult one. Castes, hate, pride, poverty and mysogyny. Recommended. ( )

An young woman journalist, who emigrated from India to the USA as a child, is put in the position of covering a story of an honor killing in rural India. The story of the honor killing is a story of forbidding love between a young Muslim man and a young Hindu woman. They meet working in a garment factory, though the brothers of the young woman highly resent her employment despite their dire poverty.
There are two stories of hatred & violence borne of religious fundamentalism intertwined in the novel: that of Meena the peasant woman and Smita, the journalist. The effects of social & economic status on their outcomes is realistically portrayed. And of course, the vulnerability of women in a patriarchal society is another theme. ( )

Immersive setting. This book actually felt like it started off stronger than it ended for me. ( )

I don’t really know what to say. It was an incredibly powerful novel. I’m not the biggest fan of the very end, but everything else moved me immensely. ( )

I read this because my daughter's alumnae book group read it. I have long thought that nothing could make me want to go to India, and here's one more reason for that feeling. The book is about a journalist's investigation of an honor killing and, surprisingly, is one of the few books I've read in which the Muslims come off as reasonable. One of the characters says why he loves living in India so much, it boils down to "if you're rich and have servants, life is pleasant." My daughter says, "Yeah, that's true everywhere." The book shows the big cultural difference between rural and urban India, but it seems to me that everywhere there is a rather disgusting reverence for hierarchy. I know this is the system many religions and politicians prefer and push my country toward. I keep hoping we can resist. ( )

This novel centers around the forbidden love of a Hindu woman and Muslim man in a rural village in present-day India. When Meena marries a Muslim man, Abdul, her brothers exact vengeance by burning her husband and their very modest home. Meena is badly disfigured when she attempts to save Abdul from the fire. Knowing that she is pregnant is the only things that keeps her from committing suicide. When their daughter is born, she is forced by the ostracism of her community to live with her resentful mother-in-law. Not content with destroying her home and husband, her brothers and their associates conspire one more hideous punishment for her.

An Indian American journalist, Smita, covers the story as an American correspondent, and relives the old world Indian traditions of misogyny and patriarchal obedience to outdated values that she experienced as a child in India. She falls in love with a man who served as her guide and associate while covering the story. Together, they plan to save Meena's child, whose name translates to Honor. Their love interest is perhaps the only discordant note in this story.

I highly recommend A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry for a glimpse into the politics of India as an adjuct to the lives of despair endured by the well-developed characters. It is a remarkable book with a supeerlative ending ( )

TW/CW: Murder, torture, misogyny, sex, racism

RATING: 4/5

REVIEW: Honor is the story of Smita, an Indian-American journalist who has come to India to report on the court case of a young Hindu woman whose marriage to a Muslim man led to his death and her disfigurement.

This is a truly heartbreaking story. The writing is beautiful, and I found myself flipping through the pages quickly, wanting desperately to find out what happens next. I really liked the way the author made sure that the reader knew that things like this didn’t happen just in India – for instance, how she connected what happened to Meena to the murder of black people in America. Because this story is unfortunately not one that is tied to one nation only but which is a black spot on the entire human race.

This is an emotional book, but it is also a beautiful one. I didn’t want to put it down and while parts of it broke my heart, it also was very hopeful. I highly recommend this book! ( )

I read this book for a Read Around the World challenge. That is pretty much the only reason I finished it. The story takes place in modern day India, yet the story centers around the murder of a man who is Muslim but married a Hindu woman. He is burned alive by her family. She takes the case to court to prove a point, but because all the government officials and judges involved have been bribed, the brothers are found not guilty. In retaliation the woman is stoned to death, and her infant daughter is taken into hiding. The main character, Smita, is an Indian American who has come to India to help a fellow journalist friend finish the story on the case. In the process, Smita falls in love and has to come to terms with her Indian heritage in all its complexities. What disturbed me most about the book is that she chooses to remain in India with the child, despite the fact that the child's life will continue to be in danger. I do not think the brothers looking to kill her are going to give up so easily in looking for the child. Even though India is her home country, I do not understand why Smita would choose to stay somewhere where it appears that only a few wealthy can count on escaping potential ill harm. Perhaps I am reading this wrong, but that is the impression that I am left with. ( )

Terrific book. The story is set in India. Smeetha is a reporter and goes to India to help her friend who is having surgery. Her family moved from India to the United States when she was 14. This story relates all the Indian beliefs, customs, Hindi and Muslim conflict and horrible treatment of women. Smeetha takes a journey of awakenings and self discovery. ( )

Honor, Thrity Umrigar, author; Sneha Maathan, narrator
Two women, from two different walks of life, Smita and Meena, find common ground to communicate with each other and form a bond, even as their worlds collide and their differences can never be reconciled. The contrasts are many. One comes from privilege and the other from abject poverty. One is educated and the other illiterate. One works happily as a journalist, and the other is forbidden to work, and is punished for being employed. Yet both are compatible as the plight of the one is going to be published, to enlighten the public and the world about the atrocities that are committed in the name of religion, in the name of honor, the definition of which is often corrupted from its intended meaning.
This author was born in India and emigrated to America, just like Smita, but at different times in history. Umrigar came in the 70’s to study, and this book begins around the mid 90’s, when Smita and her family sought a place of refuge from religious prejudice. Still, regardless of the timeline, injustice still exists in parts of the world, and the author exposes the underbelly of that corruption. It once lurked loudly in many corners of her home country.
In this novel, Meena, a Hindu, had the misfortune of falling in love with Abdul, a Muslim. This book is the story of their forbidden love, one so pure, we will all hope to have had it, or to have it someday, a love that crossed the lines of what was acceptable. In their villages, villages that were backward and ruled by religious fundamentalists, the zealots worked their followers into a frenzy, calling on them to do unspeakable things when they felt dishonored. Meena and Abdul met at the factory, a place Meena had been forbidden to work at by her brothers, although they happily stole her earnings which was considered theirs, since she, as a female, was entitled to nothing. She worked there to protect her sister who had been the one who insisted on working there. Abdul was different than most men; he treated Meena with enormous respect, even allowing her to taste food before he did, something no Hindu would do in her village. So, their love grew, as the shame of her brothers grew, because they believed Meena’s behavior was humiliating them in front of the other village men. The village elder agreed. He was a despicable person who believed in his own power, natural and supernatural, and used it to control the villagers. As Smita pursues the investigation for her article, she witnesses the abuseMeena is forced to endure. At the same time, she begins to grow close to her companion, interpreter and guide, Mohan, a privileged Parsi (like the author, who was also a Parsi). Is their love acceptable? It seems that she too has found an unusual, sensitive man who respects women. The outcome of both these loves will be totally different.
The narrator who read this novel was excellent. She captured the spirit and importance of each scene, and each character was portrayed so authentically, that the book played out in the theater of my mind as if I was viewing a stage production. Umrigar has truly captured man’s inhumanity to man, but she has coupled it with man's ultimate humanity, as well. While she clearly illustrates that violence, pursued in the name of G-d, is not G-dly, but abhorrent, she finds ways to point out other moments in which the characters rise above their human failures to shine with boldness and goodness, lending justice to the use of the term honor.
Privilege does not make one worthy, character does, and the author has shown that Meena has the character and common sense to be a most worthy human being, and like all those who are poor or victims of circumstances stemming from fundamentalist religious beliefs or superstition, are deserving of decent lives and respect, and not of being tormented and punished or ridiculed. Meena was the perfect spokeswoman. Her words were genuine and heartfelt.
In this book, the author has explored the contrasts between the religious and temporal, sophistication and simplicity, elites vs commoners, and privileged vs the underprivileged on every page. In some cases, right and wrong , legal and illegal, retribution and reward, all depend on what money changes hands and what religious group has more power. In India, a country of caste and division, we witness a place of contradictions. The Taj Mahal and the major cities are in stark contrast to the villages where the illiterate and poverty-stricken manage to eke out a meager existence, where women, like chattel follow the rules of men and their traditions and culture closely. Women exist to cook, clean and birth babies. Women did as they were told, or they suffered the consequences. Men controlled everything, even what belonged to the women no longer belonged to them, but to their male siblings or husbands.
While this way of life exists today, it is rare, but there are places where religion and honor conflict with reality. In an interview, Umrigar stated that she feared the world was going backward not forward. She refers to the previous administration, and she believes the progress made in the last couple of decades, may be in the process of reversal. As a witness to the events of those decades she writes about, and the current one, I disagree with her. In her book, she has Anjelie (a lawyer who represented Meena in the murder case), and Smita, questioning whether or not they are purveyors of “poverty porn”, just to get headlines. Are they achieving their goal of enlightening the world to the problems women face that will encourage meaningful change? In some way, is not the author, Umrigar, with her books, not doing the same thing. When a character in this novel compares an unjustified horrible and heinous religious act, resulting in the murder of its victim, to a policeman who may have justifiably shot an unarmed black man resisting arrest, it gave me pause. Was this the author’s need to pass on her political viewpoint in a novel that had nothing to do with it. The two events had no comparison or common ground, and its inclusion diminished that moment in the book.
During an interview with Kabir Bhatia, at the the Hudson Library and Historical Society that is available on utube, I heard her say that the election of Trump appalled her. However, Trump’s dislike of the terrorism of religious zealots, did not mean he disliked the religion of the zealot or the race of the terrorist.. Although these words are not in her book, others are, that give away her political predilection. I had searched for an interview to find out if the book stemmed from a real event and heard those words.
Absent the mention of racism in America and the intimation of her dislike of Trump, both of which were totally out of place, for me, I would have given it five stars. There are moments in this book when it will be hard to go on because the content is about incredible arrogance, injustice and brutality, but the book needs to be read to open other minds to the need to put an end to such behavior. ( )

Truly eye-opening. Incredibly moving, terribly sad and heartbreaking. ( )

An amazing book. Extremely sad. Love books about India. ( )

Indian-American journalist Smita Agarwal cuts a rare vacation short when her white journalist friend Shannon calls her to Mumbai - a city Smita swore she'd never return to again. Smita thinks Shannon needs her to help recuperate in the hospital, but Shannon actually wants Smita to go to a small village and cover the story she'd been working on: the story of Meena, a Hindu woman who married a Muslim man. Meena's two older brothers set her husband on fire and killed him, and nearly killed her as well. Anjali, a lawyer, took Meena's case against her brothers pro bono, and the verdict is coming down any day now. Smita travels with Shannon's friend Mohan, an Indian man, to Meena's village, despite the painful memories the journey revives for her.

Quotes

"Being uncomfortable is good, beta. It's in discomfort that growth happens." (Papa, 41)

Nobody was the villain in his or her own life story. (51)

"You don't love something because you're blind to its faults, right? You love it despite its flaws." (Mohan, 61)

Because traditions are like eggs - once you break one, it is impossible to put it back inside its shell. (Meena, 117)

"These men will never give up until they destroy us. Their traditions mean more to them than their humanity." (Radha to Meena, 129)

As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today - the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride. (Meena, 131)

But in that one minute, my whole life changed. His words cut open a belief I had held my whole life, but when I looked inside, there was nothing there. (Meena, 164)

Because a woman can live in one of two houses - fear or love. It is impossible to live in both at the same time. (Meena, 189)

"What cannot be cured must be endured." (Papa, 204)

"All the important things in life are supposed to scare you." (Mohan, 289) ( )

This is a difficult read on the horrendous topic of domestic violence and religious extremism in both rural and urban India. Circumstances bring journalist Smita, an Indian-American, back to Mumbai to report on the murder of Abdul, a Muslim husband, by his Hindu brothers-in-law, which also resulted in their sister Meena being set afire. Meena, who with her sister had taken a factory job against the wishes of her brothers, tells her painful story in the weak hope that it will bring vindication for and attention to their trial on murder charges. The hatred between Muslims and Hindus is also told in Smita's back story, revealed in a surprising unwinding. There's also a slow-burning romance that provides relief from the darkness. The novel is a well-written and heartbreaking acknowledgement that extreme gender bias requires intervention by better government and by recognition that the subjugation of women is criminal activity that creates poverty and maintains repression. ( )

Beautifully written tale set in India, moving story of 2 loves.
Smita, a journalist, travels to India, thinking she is called to take care of a colleague who is injured and in the hospital. However, her friend wants Smita to take over her story of Meena, a Hindu woman, who was burned by her family and village for marrying a Muslim man. Smita meets Mohan, mistaking him for a chauffeur, and becomes close to him as they follow Meena's story. While in India, Smita faces the realities of why her family left when she was 14.
This story is heartbreaking, but also hopeful. You are immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of India. It is hard to understand the hatred that is displayed, and what some consider honor.
I loved every word of this story. I will be reading more of Umrigar's works. Her writing is simply gorgeous and so provoking. ( )

I really enjoyed the first two thirds of the book which involves a Hindu woman marrying a Muslim man in India. Because this is culturally not allowed her brothers set fire to her house which kills her husband and badly injures her. The bulk of the novel is about a reporter who must write an article about the woman's court case in which she is trying to bring her brothers to justice. OK fine -although the constant rehashing of the Hindu/Muslim rift is a little much. What really ruined it for me is the book devolves into a Lifetime romance novel at the end. ( )

Honor by Thrity Umrigar is a 2022 Algonquin Books publication.

Smita, an Indian American journalist, has been summoned back to India at the behest of a friend, who is facing a medical crisis. Upon arrival, she discovers her friend doesn’t so much want her presence by her side as she wishes for Smita to take on an assignment in her stead.

The case in question is centered on Meena, a Hindu woman who married a Muslim. Members of her own family murdered her husband, while Meena was severely burned trying to save his life. Now Meena’s brothers are on trial, while she and her young daughter reside with her bitter mother-in-law.

Smita agrees to cover the case for her friend, albeit reluctantly. Accompanying her, is Mohan, who serves as a host/ guide/assistant, and occasional devil’s advocate, helping her navigate a country Smita has a hard time reconciling, but is still helplessly drawn to at the same time.

This is a powerful, gut-wrenching story, highlighting two very different, but very brave women, who sacrifice all they know for love and for the true, rightful meaning of ‘Honor’…

Overall, the book absolutely deserves all the praise bestowed on it. This book will linger in your mind and heart for a long time after you turn the final page. ( )