Rating: 
Summary: A reading workout with stellar results
Review: This is one of those books that you really want to put down after the first half--but you keep on going because something within you tells you to read. The God of Small Things is extremely poetic and not for those who want a quick start and finish. Roy forces you to asorb each word and reflect on its validity within the novel. The mundane is beautiful and complex, and the characters are well-defined, and well, somewhat confusing. But, somehow, Roy brings it all together towards the end, and you leave the book feeling refreshed and moved. Admittedly, I almost broke down and cried at the end. Does anyone else think Roy is reminiscent of Toni Morrison?
Rating: 
Summary: Mesmerizing and poetic
Review: If you expect a candy coated fantasy story where everything comes out allright in the end - then run away. If you expect a book which will put everything into plain English and use correct grammar - then run away. If you expect a story that is morally and religiously proper, again, I plead you to run away.However, if you are inclined to read books which portray the reality and darker side of every society, then read this. I grew up in this land where Ms. Roy's book is set. What she speaks of is the truth, which apparently, many reviewers can't handle. Her style of writing is beautiful, unique, fragmented, and awesome. Time jumps back and forth, but any reader who's paying attention can easily keep track. I enjoyed this book partucularly due to Roy's inventive and creative style of writing and her sense of irony. At times the writing is so stunning, it'll make you wonder how a person learns to be so fluid and imaginative.
Rating:
Summary: beautiful but heart-breaking
Review: I thought this book was beautiful but almost too painful to read. Yet, I'm glad I pushed myself to keep going. As the tragedy unfolds and characters are destroyed by a society desperate to uphold its age-old social order, the book seems pretty grim. But the final scene was very rewarding - a poignant affirmation of the kind of love that disregards social barriers and breaks the "Love Laws... that lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much." The tragedy is the powerlessness of that love to protect us from what Roy calls "human history," the need for social structure that is driven by "civilization's fear of nature, men's fear of women, power's fear of powerlessness."
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Summary: She pulls you into a world...
Review: Roy's sensous, unique language draws the reader into a world where the earth sighs and the breeze speaks. Roy's story is a woven tapestry of an anglophile society that has learned self-denigration, a country in chaotic political flux, a family with scars and memories, and a girl/woman's inner world. Roy manages to create her own language that personalizes and makes intimate Etha and Rahel's perception of life around them.
Rating: 
Summary: There is a story there, if you can find it.
Review: It wasn't the worst book I have read, but I found myself skimming through paragraphs at a time to get through her wordiness to the story. If you enjoy heavily worded phrases and endless metaphors, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: stunning language, lucid imagery, a gem of a book.
Review: this is by far one of THE greatest books that i have ever read. roy makes her story come alive with language so pure and poetic that it will make your heart sing. addressing such hot political/human rights issues such as the treatment of untouchables in india's caste system, she does so with amazing grace and the truth only a native could produce. sexual abuse, notions of femininity and motherhood, loneliness and despair, they are all interwoven into this tapestry of words. a rich, fulfilling book that will leave you stunned, and looking for more. give her the booker prize, yes, give her whatever she wants, she deserves it.
Rating:
Summary: The God of Small Things
Review: This is one of the most amazing books I have ever read. The best description for it is "as subtle as it is powerful". I find this to be a book a woman would enjoy more than a man. This is one of the most high brow books I have ever read. Its a sad story written in the most beautiful language. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: family secrets are the worst and most interesting...
Review: I decided to read this book on a recommendation of a friend who raved about the author's writing style.
The book was amazing. It took me about a week to get through it, and I couldn't wait for the ending. You're given the ending in the beginning, but the way she suspends the events and gives you a taste here, a taste there of what really happened, just leaves you in absolute suspense.. and when you finally get to the conclusion of what happened you're completely wound up from wandering through the whole book and all those intertwining stories. The prose is also amazing, you just want to eat the words off of the page, and her writing has the true mark of India. By that I mean the colors just spring from the page, the way everything is described.. it's great.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary Achievement, no Small Thing at all
Review: This book powerfully recalls the astonishing feat Faulkner performed in rendering children's points of view as they try to comprehend and assimilate the tragedies drawn and suffered by the significant adults in their lives. With an equally experimental and more poetical narration than Faulkner, Arundhati Roy renders a family saga comprehending three generations in Kerala. The book should be read aloud; it needs to be heard. The brooding sense of looming disaster made me put the book aside several times, for I could not bring myself to see the disaster which would fracture the worlds of the two-egg twins. But the charm of the twins and of the narration, the eccentricities of the characters, brought me back each time to the charms of the book. Like all great poetry this needs to be read aloud and read several times. It is like a traditional Romance--as opposed to the novel which aims to do realism--which is more dreamlike and poetic than an ordinary novel It should be categorized along side _Moby-Dick_ and _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ and _Sound and Fury_.
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Summary: Read about the "non-Western Perspecitve" - it's about time!
Review: I loved this book! But it is not a book that can be read lightly or quickly. Rather it is one that must be read with time and intelligence. To read it abstent-mindedly means that you read it without gaining from it. It's a great book about a post-colonial country and it offers a perspective that is different than that of the Western one [the perspective that most of us also equate as the "only" perspective]. Pick it up and experience what the "God of Small Things" has to offer. You won't regret it!
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