Book review: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

When I saw it in Blackwell recently, I picked up Arundhati Roy's latest novel without hesitation as I remember how wonderful her other book, The God of Small Things, was. It wasn't a happy story, but it was such a mesmerising tale of tales. In fact, it was beautiful in its sadness.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is just as good. It captures your attention first with the story of Aftab, who wanted to be a girl. The details are amazing and it wonderfully weaves the national political and historical details with the internal turmoils of the characters.

Half-way through reading I was wondering what the connections were of all the people in the book, separately intriguing, and each with a bizarre story to tell. The ending did not disappoint.

I don't want to reveal the story too much. But if you love some good storytelling, this one is very rich, beautiful and has a happy ending Roy's style.

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