Rating: 
Summary: Devastating.
Review: I'm surprised at what I had to write as a one-line summary. The sum of the parts is gut-wrenching. However, when I think about this book I inevitably smile. Venutha having tea with the twins (Estha in drag), Rahel with her Fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo and silly glasses, Estha singing along with the nuns in the Sound of Music, the twins shivering their legs and acting like clerks. I think that looking for an Epic in this novel is missing the point. The God of Small Things is all in the overlooked joys of everyday life. That is where hope comes from.
Rating:
Summary: Abolutely fanatastic - one of the best books I've read....
Review: ... and I do read a lot of books.The characters, Chacko, Baby Kochamma, Ammu, Velutha and of course the twins will stay with me forever. I couldn't put the book down. Read it, savor it and re-read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to put down
Review: "The God of Small Things" is a look into the life of a family in India, stories of their ups and downs, good times and bad times. It is a family full of beaten wives, scared children and drunk fathers, a story of a family that comes from a small village in India (Ayemenem). The family holds the highest rank in their town. They are owners of a pickle factory. Happy and kind on the outside, they are hateful and spitful on the inside. The hatred that's in the family is not just for the people they call the untouchables, but also for each other. The fear that runs in this family is deep. This book is hard to put down, it keeps the reader guessing. "God of Small Things" may be discribed as confusing at the start, but then the story line comes together. Arundhati Roy writes the book to keep the readers' attention. The skiping aroud from story to story keeps the reader guessing. This book is highly recomended to anyone who likes to read.
Rating:
Summary: A stirring book
Review: I would like to give the book 5 stars but I cannot because at times I felt that the book, had no body, no step by step happenings, definitely not a story-teller's dream. And yet... that is the beauty of the book, it flows like a river glides along without the reader realizing the path. I liked the style of narration and most of all I felt, there were phrases here and there (the small things) which have suddenly made me travel through memories. Yes, It is a book which invokes thoughts, though the ending left me a little vague and incomplete and dissappointed. But again...that is what life is all about!!
Rating:
Summary: Unconventional Writing - Touches the Heart
Review: Ms. Roy has been very bold in her use and misuse of English language in this book. She has broken all rules of conventional literature. Her unique style makes this book a pleasure to read. Most of the book is written from a child's perspective about life. The godliness and innocence of childhood has been beautifully captured in this book. Its refreshing to visualize the world through a child's eyes and how small things mean so much big to them. The weakness of the book is its thin plot, average prose and some weak characterization. This book stands free of national boundaries and cultural bounds. In my opinion, the Booker Prize is an adequate judgement of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I picked up this book while in India last November, at a small book kiosk in Connaught Place, New Delhi. I'd been told by numerous people - backpackers, expats, even an autorickshaw driver - that it was THE book to read, and so I bought it along with a number of other books written by Indian women. I threw it into my pack and promptly forgot about it, and it went right onto my bookshelf when I returned to the U.S., unread and unlamented. It wasn't until a week ago that I noticed it collecting dust, and I pulled it out to read on my daily train commute. I finished it last night. I started it again this morning. I don't think I've ever read anything quite as moving. The quality of Ms. Roy's narration leaves me grasping for superlatives; how many ways can one say "astounding"? The words seemed to take shape in my mind as I read them, gaining mass and substance and then spinning out of control to take on a life of their own. I frequently had to put the book aside in order to anchor myself in reality - I was that overwhelmed. If you are considering whether or not to buy this book, DO SO - but only if you are prepared for a life-changing experience.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not the best
Review: I enjoyed this book, it has a great deal of intriguing, quirky characterizations and some interesting, insightful perspectives on life. I could not give it five stars because I don't feel the storyline merits it. (If you want a five star story line, read the novel, THE LAST DAY, by Glenn Kleier--one of the most incredible and awe inspiring reads out there right now). I hope to hear and read more of Roy in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Postcolonial Feminist Dialogic & Carnival = A Great Read
Review: I had expected a well-written story within a postcolonial/Marxist/multicultural/feminist framework. You don't win the Booker by having nothing to say. What I found was a text completely self-aware of its status in a way that strongly promotes Bakhtin's references to Menippean satire, carnival, and dialogic. Heteroglossia is the term of the day, class, in evidence everywhere from the backward-reading twins to the high & low language, high and low culture, and the complete rejection of truth in an either/or way. Arundhati Roy is at the forefront of postcolonial writers completely aware of their status and completely unencumbered by the direct experience of their parents with colonial rule. We will have to find new theories, or heavily modify old ones, to accomodate such a magnificently self-aware text steeped in an inexorable sadness.
Rating:
Summary: Instant re-read, elegant prose
Review: Early on the prose takes hold, after establishing the characters, you are hooked.foreign country with real problems. Not bogged down by intricate politics but given a feeling of the reality of human suffering.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much cutting and pasting
Review: Like The Celestine Prophecy, here is a trendy bestseller everyone is trying too hard to love. And like The Celestine Prophecy, it just isn't very well written. Ms. Roy shows some definite potential when she just lets her story flow and the characters talk naturally, but too much of the time the prose is cut into bite-size portions that digest way too easily. It sounds like a bad poem written by a nihilistic teenager. The characters get far too annoying too, with Ms. Roy cramming them so full of quirks that you get sick of it. The God of Small Things is occasionally poetic but more often than not ridiculous, contrived, and boring.
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