A Fine Balance

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Average customer rating 5.0 (24 comments)

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This is an epic novel. The world it portrays is complicated, absorbing, rich, and heartbreaking. The characters are so finely drawn and fully imagined they have a solidity and presence that lasts well beyond the last page. They survive against overwhelming odds--damaged, broken, but persistent in their resilience and determination to live, to be themselves, and to be a family for each other, even though their connection is more accidental than actual. I was so invested in these characters, their crazy bravery and dignity in the face of a brutal and corrupt world, that the final scene came as a devastating blow, the end of the story felt hard as the loss of a personal friend. This is a book you won't easily forget.

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Wow... Just wow. (If you haven't read this yet, what are you waiting for?)

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How Mistry found humor and humanity in such a sad tale is amazing. How these characters remained human under the harsh conditions that were imposed is remarkable. I just finished and I feel the sadness of these characters and of this story will remain with me for some time.

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I will never view India the same way again. I couldn't put the book down, but didn't want it to end. Rohinton is a master of detail and character development.

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Love this book! The characters are amazing. Even after years of reading this, the story is still with me. Sad but inspiring!

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I cried at the end of this book.

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This is a highly engrossing novel. While reading A Fine Balance, I found myself captivated by the gritty and real images of suffering and of life for its characters. At times I found this hard to read, but I attribute that to my own desire to escape thinking about the inner workings of those whose lives are lived yearning for better. Minstry's storytelling abilities are a true gift and I look forward to his next gift to us.

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With its epic scope yet lovingly detailed characters, this masterpiece is both social commentary and intimate portrait. How perfect a book for the oughts -- giving the non-Indian a vivid, unsentimental look at this global neighbor, while painting one of life's bleaker pictures, all the while reminding us of our powers of resilience.

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Very intense and not exactly uplifting, but well worth it if you can handle a little tragedy in your novels. Many images from this book are still vivid in my mind, 7 years after reading.

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despite the "oprah pick" (which can often times annoy me) this book is truly incredible. it is a tragic tale filled with characters that you will fall in love with and care about every step of the way. i know i am not doing it justice by this lame endorsement, but you just gotta trust me. get it. read it. weep.

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An amazing tale of family relations and Indian politics in the 70s, this book made me teeter on that "fine balance between hope and despair". I never thought I could inhabit the body and mind of a legless beggar, but Rohinton Mistry's deceptively straightforward narrative made this happen.

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This book has stuck with me since i read it 7 years ago. The portrayal of life in India is mesmerizing, haunting, exhilarating. It pre-dated "Slumdog Millionaire" and delved more deeply into the social, cultural, and political turmoil that has existed in India for generations. I hope to read it again.

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This book has stuck with me since i read it 7 years ago. The portrayal of life in India is mesmerizing, haunting, exhilarating. It pre-dated "Slumdog Millionaire" and delved more deeply into the social, cultural, and political turmoil that has existed in India for generations. I hope to read it again.

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This novel swept through 40 years of India's history, making relationships between the various castes exceptionally alive. Heartbreaking but important. The book of the decade.

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"A Fine Balance" represents one of the most powerful novels of recent years. In its rendering of Indian society following partition, the fates of the unconnected are insightfully followed as their joys of human existence are ground away by immense poverty. This is a book that has moved all whom I know who have read it. By producing a work where its protagonists shriek out in pain and one that shuns a Hollywood ending, Mistry forces the reader to feel the unfairness of society much as did the writings of Zola or Dickens.

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This book is absolutely captivating! Beautifully written, the character development is handled with both depth and sensitivity and the reader comes to care deeply for the protagonists and their community. The author's skill both inspires and transports the reader to a different time (and Americans to a different land), it recognizes the fraility and ugliness in life, but also celebrates the capacity for human beings to do and be good.

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rich language, history, family life, political struggle. This book has it all and is written with eloquence and a deep love of it's subject. A brilliant novel.

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A Fine Balance knocked my socks off and took my breath away. The twists and turns of the plot and the range of human experience seem larger than life, but perhaps not unusual for fictional India.

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I could have nominated any one of Rohinton Mistry's fine books. Each one is a treasure. His feelings for and about India are unlike anyone else I've ever read. He is unblinkingly honest and deeply enamoured of her simultaneously. His language is magnificent and I love his sense of humor. His characters are so finely drawn that years later I still find myself thinking of them and even missing them as if they were people I really knew. But it is his honestly about and love of India that I most appreciate.

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This is one of those books that will stay with you long after you have closed it, stored it in the shelf and taken another book. It is the juxtaposition that is difficult to comprehend, the hopelessness of it all and yet the timid contentment in the companionship of others that is so difficult to reconcile in this day in age. The characters take blow after blow that life dishes out and as the pages become harder to turn and your heart becomes heavy with the pain, despair, regret that is felt by the characters you come to realize that this book is not going to have a happy ending that we have become so accustomed to, no twist that will make it all better. You realize that this book is a tribute to those that live a hard life, the events are not sugar coated for those with weak stomachs or whose rose colored glasses are fixed firmly on the bridge of their nose. It tells the story of thousands of anonymous lives who victory is a firm grasp of this living plane and the comfort of companionship. And for this I say thanks. A mesmerizing read.

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This book is my favorite of all time. I would recommend it to everyone! It is a must read!

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I was recommended to read this book by a total stranger I encountered in a public library. The American lady said to me, 'If you enjoy literature then you've got to read "A Fine Balance". I wish I could thank the lady for helping me select one of the greatest book I've ever read in a long time. I not only enjoyed the book, I loved it, and literally cried and laughed with the characters, for the fact that these characters were not imaginary, but they exist in a real world, maybe with different names.

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I am signed up for a trip to visit the country of India December 2007 - January 2008 ... Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" is suggested reading. It was a pleasure re-reading this astonishing novel once again, should be read by everyone who loves books! "A Fine Balance" is THE India novel which transforms our understanding of life! The main characters will crawl into your heart - 4 stars!

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One of the best books I have ever read!!!! A must read!!!! I could not put it down and even today, 4 years after I read it, I can still remember the characters vividly in my mind. Definitely worth the read!!!!