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City of Ghosts by Bali Rai (view source)
Revision as of 12:12, 25 August 2020
, 12:12, 25 August 2020no edit summary
Oh hooray! An unusual book! ''City of Ghosts'' has some magic realism about it. It's also historical fiction. It's a love story. A ghost story. A critique of colonialism. And more. For this jaded reviewer, who spends a great deal of time reading books that fit into rather narrow genres - teen girl needs boyfriend, fantasy quester vanquishes beasts, vampires come to New York City - it came as a real breath of fresh air. Rai doesn't seem too bothered about focus here. He's done his research, his imagination has kicked in, and he's run with it. The result is a book that does take a little while to get into, but once you have, it's thoroughly absorbing.
The parallel stories run along together in a rather resplendent patchwork of the narrative. One moment, the tone is reminiscent of a grandly-told fairy tale. The next, we are in the bread-and-butter realism of how alienated boys are radicalised, and we're seeing history as it should be seen - utterly relevant to today. And then we're enjoying bittersweet first love affairs on a level that will be instantly recognisable to adolescent readers.
I enjoyed ''City of Ghosts'', can you tell? It's the kind of book that leaves you buzzing with all sorts of thoughts after you've read it. There's so much going on that perhaps it shouldn't work, but it really, really does. Bravo!
My thanks to the nice people at Doubleday for sending the book.
They might also enjoy [[Anila's Journey by Mary Finn]], a very literary piece of historical fiction about a girl alone in India at the end of the eighteenth century. [[Crusade by Elizabeth Laird]] is in a very different time and place, but looks at another massacre perpetrated by the English. Older teens might appreciate [[Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri]].
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