Bengali Girls Don’t – Luky A. Sherman
One day I got a note that one L.A. Sherman was following me on Twitter. Hmm, I thought, who is this person? I clicked on her profile and discovered she wasn’t just a pretty face – she’d written a book that promised to hit on a number of my interests: international travel, foreign culture, growing up in England, youthful rebellion, and much more. So I clicked to follow her. That has turned out to be a very good decision.
Just recently she tweeted that the first chapter of her book, “Bengali Girl’s Don’t”, was available on her website. I clicked on it and immediately became even more interested in her book. For grins I looked it up on Amazon and found it priced where I didn’t need to give it a second thought, and from the get go I was not disappointed.
I’m generally very harsh when it comes to reviewing, mainly because so much that I read is simple retread. I am constantly amazed at how much same old same old makes it to market given how agents and publishers and all the experts in the world keep ranting on about how stories need to stand apart, be different, bring something new in order to stand a chance. A quick glance at all the doom and gloom stories out there speaks volumes. Sorry, but managing a drug-induced smile after the doctors remove the last of your cancerous colon in a last gasp effort to give you one more day doesn’t count as triumph over anything. Anyway, “Bengali Girl’s Don’t” does bring freshness to the arena. It’s not a memoir. Rather it’s a story based on real events and continues to show how truth is stranger than fiction.
Luky begins her story with a tale of graphic violence that grips the reader. It is very surreal, and yet that’s what makes it feel spot on. Once we get past the war, however, the book takes on a more “conventional” feel. Part II details growing up in Bradford, England, and we get a good feel for what life is like for this Bengali girl. She can’t escape the Western influences which, ultimately, sets off the chain of events that consumes so much of her life.
Luky goes to great lengths to give us the flavor of her life, even including many native phrases (which she translates). The native phrases add a certain richness to the story, but I think they were overdone. I felt the flow got bogged down by her having to explain what’s being said. With some terms and phrases the translation went away after a while, but the idea seemed to carry on for too long.
Luky also gives some wonderful images and a solid feeling of what it is like in such households, but I wished I had more often felt what she was feeling and/or experiencing. For example, she writes: “Inside the shed, they scan the walls for bugs and other creepy crawlies whose ickiness turns their stomachs oofhtah, upside down.” I would have loved to be put in that shed. What did it smell like? Was it musty inside? Cob webs? Anything squishy? Dark? She soon tells of mothballs, but that’s in reference to an old sheet in the shed. And when she and a friend get caught shop-lifting the first time? Nothing. I don’t know if this is because she was just that cocky or just left it out. Some kind of emotional cue would have been nice here and elsewhere. She absolutely nails other descriptions – the airport, the “toilet/bath”, the whole wedding thing (not that I would know for sure, but I felt like I was there) – wonderfully chilling, especially in context of the “we’re only going away for two weeks” and how that played out.
Overall I would recommend this book. Some might not “get” the culture stuff, or exactly how the story is unfolding, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. There are a few minor technical glitches and places she used what I’d describe as an odd way to say something – “Abir and Saqir’s two uncles return home deflated,” for example, but the quality of the writing is otherwise very high.
Bottom line – despite the horror she faced, she didn’t really ever feel sorry for herself. She did what was necessary and, eventually, triumphed. How refreshing!
L.A. Sherman’s page: http://lukysherman.blogspot.com/
and her FB: https://www.facebook.com/L.A.ShermanOfficialPage
Thanks so much for the great review! What did you think of the pictures? Luky
You’re very welcome. Thank you for sharing your story.
The pictures were absolutely brilliant, and having them at the *end* of the book made some quite chilling in the context of the story. Well done!