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Summary: I want 3000 pages more!!!!!!
Review: Is there life after Suitable Boy ? I am walking round the house with a great big gap in the middle of my life. Where have all those characters gone, the ones I shared so many emotion filled days/nights with ? Surly Mr Seth has done a great injustice to his readers by ending the novel with only 3000 or so pages.I have told myself that I will be back among friends in a years time, perherps I just might find some extra pages that I missed this time around. Thank you Mr Seth, it was an experience that will live with me for ever.
Rating:
Summary: Truly a friend for life!
Review: This book will keep you company for the rest of your life. Vikram Seth writes with humour, passion, and integrity. When you first look at the length of this book, you may think it's too long. At the end, I was wishing it would go on forever! One of the reviews on the back of the book states that "A Suitable Boy" is "a friend for life" and that's true. This book will give you a new insight and perspective on the indian culture. The book is worth reading just for the poem "The Fever Bird", which opened up the intriguing world of poetry to my eyes. You'll never regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Is this novel a great book or only a great read?
Review: I am not qualified to judge, but bring on the sequel. That such a long and (physicallly) heavy book could be so delightful and charming , so light in its execution makes you feel it can't be serious literature. Time will tell. And finally, I'll bet that most readers, like me, are disappointed in our heroine's choice, but it does not detract a whit from one's enjoyment.
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Summary: Beautifully written, a book no reader should be without!
Review: Vikram Seth has worked wonders in this beautifuly written novel. A Suitable Boy is a great story with all the emotions of real life. You laugh, cry and fall in love with so many of the charachters that you feel you really have got to know them. The story of Lata Mehra and her family and friends gives you a taste of indian life as it is. A Suitable Boy is a 'must have' for all readers. Read it and I promise you, you won't forget it for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: A Suitable Boy indeed.
Review: A Suitable Boy indeed. Tis every mother's dream. I would however not have chosen the same as Lata did.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly overrated
Review: I must join the (apparent) minority of reviewers who found this book disappointing. I enjoyed the first page of the book very much, but it was downhill from there. The longer it went on, the more it became a chore rather than a pleasure. Clearly it is a remarkable achievement because of its length and breadth, and the depth of knowledge of India displayed by the author. However, speaking as a person who has never been to India but would like to know more about it, I have to say that I ended the book knowing little more about the country than when I began. This is because of Seth's consistent use of all sorts of words and terms relating to Indian culture without giving the reader even a clue of what they mean. I think that to appreciate this book as describing the panoply of India, you would have to know something about India to begin with. Furthermore, I hated the ending. Perhaps it was Seth's intention to involve the reader in a long, slow dance which appeared to aim at consummation and then have the story stumble clumsily to a finish. If so, it was well executed. I felt cheated at the end and was sorry I had ever picked up the book. This may just make me a romantic who wants the pat, happy ending, but there is more to it than that. I found Lata's character unbelievably frustrating--not because I couldn't appreciate the pressures placed upon her by societal expectation, but because she seemed like an intelligent person capable of exerting her will who makes decision after decision based on pure naivete. In fact, I found none of the characters particularly engaging. I think that Vikram Seth is clearly a writer of some wit, erudition, and with a facility for description. However, I don't think plotting is one of his strong suits. My recommendation to readers is that if you do read this book, don't feel that you have to like it just because you have invested the many hours necessary to read this overly long novel. "Long" and "epic" does not equal "good".
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Summary: I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me
Review: I am a fan of Anthony Trollop and had just finished the last of the 6-novel Palliser series when I started A Suitable Boy, and I was amazed at how Seth had used the same combination of the personal and political over a wide range of social classes and locations to tell his very modern story of a country halfway round the world. Don't be discouraged by its length and don't be discouraged by the politics. It is all of a piece and necessary to what I think is Seth's central aim of showing us a slice of Indian life at all levels during this time period using the search for a suitable boy for Lata as a framing device. I also think that the criticisms of the ending as being unimaginative is unfair. Given the nature of the novel and Seth's generally amused and benign view of the world, I thought it was just right. We finish the novel in the same state as Lata is on the last page, wishing we knew what will happen next.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: This is one of the best books anyone will ever read. All should buy this book as it gives one an insight about something totally different.
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Summary: This novel never leaves you alone.
Review: After reading this 1300+ page drama, I feel intimately connected with Lata, and Haresh, and Malati and Maan and all the wonderfully colorful characters brought to life in these pages. As if by magic, India became a real place to me, and the customs and cultural voyages the author takes are beautiful and very well written. Sometimes I could smell the paan, other times I could feel the political hostilities in my veins. Vikram Seth's occasional slippage into the homosexual realm can be easily forgiven, as he doesn't paint the novel with it, merely taps the subject, jerking the reader into an awareness of it's existence, and then leaving it. My life became somewhat entwined with Seth's characters, I feel I know them now, and I feel as though I always will. This novel is not a page turner, stay-up-late kind of book. Rather, it is a friendly companion, able to take you away at a moment's notice - but not too far away. Read it. You'll make new friends.
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Summary: The novel is still alive!
Review: thank you Mr Seth, for putting your opinions and judgements behind life, for such a beautiful prose and for giving birth to people that I am now loving so much. That's novel at its best, since ever. Many times, when Mrs Kapoor died, when Maan could not stop to harm himself, when Lata and Kabir could not meet, when music was played and sung, I cried as I always do when art, as here, meets life and it's a miracle. And now I'm feeling as coming back from the long journey to India I have not yet made. OK, something not so perfect in the end but how to criticize when also for me has been so difficult to accept "that's over", to get separated and let go...
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