Rating: 
Summary: special
Review: Arundhati Roy's first novel has all the flavor of a first novel, the cathartic passages, the intrepid stylistics, the fresh characterizations. While some readers found it difficult to enjoy and/or convoluted, I thought it was sheer poetry.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic, & ingenious
Review: "The God of Small things" captures the essence of growing up in the post-colonialist third world. It depicts the loss of identity that one feels trying to belong to a colonizer's culture, of strugglig to find a face in the world to call one's own. Heart-wrebchingly, through the eyes of children, one sees how even tiny people know 'their place' How 'brown feet in bata sandals' know where they stand in relation to white Sophie Molls. I felt the pain of my own childhood, of humming 'Sound of Music' tunes in the middle of crowded markets filled w/beggars. I remembered the disorientation and pain of it all.
Rating: 
Summary: At times irritating and sometimes splendid...
Review: There is not that much to say about the 1997 Booker Prize, after all. What MUST be said, though, is that Roy is a talented writer, who is inspired and influenced both by Nabokov and by Rushdie.The problem is that she does not explore the realms of fancy as strikingly as Rushdie, and that Nabokov's highly baroque criss-crossing of patterns and his love for arty language games are sometimes vividly present in THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS, but rarely emulated or equalled. As a result, the novel is packed with witticisms and literary feats that are not always meaningful. Of course, the way Roy treats fictional characters and fictional language is encouraging (this is only her first novel), and some chapters are full of mastery, with a good amount either of well-tempered tenderness or of battered bitterness, put it the way you want... I think there are interesting symbols and metaphors, and this is a true novelist with actual (though unevenly used) talents. This is perhaps not the contemporary Indian writer I would have chosen had I been a member of the Booker Prize jury in 1997...! Guillaume Cingal
Rating: 
Summary: Much publicised but terribly disappointing.
Review: With much expectations, I started reading this book. To be honest - I found this book is about spit, vomit, carcass and the like. The style of English adopted is extremely irritating. This book leaves no pleasant feelings.
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Summary: Fragmented memories of fractured childhood.
Review: When we remember out childhood,the memories come piecemeal,conjured out of our subconscious by who- knows- what triggers.This book captures the pungency of those moments when childhood memories engulf us, and with no warning we are transported to that unthinking unknowing time when we simply accepted.When we regain adult perspective we can look at such dimly remembered experience and go "Of course that was what they/it meant," and fit the experience into our never ending tapestry of life.Fractured, fragmented, broken, the small iniquities of life that finally determine our lives.Ms.Roy recreates the bewilderment of childhood and permits the adult in us to reach back and make contact with that confused child that is at the heart of us all.
Rating: 
Summary: Unimpressive recitation of stereotypes
Review: I am unimpressed by this book and frankly do not understand why it is getting so much publicity. I suppose trite emotional sagas and imitating Rushdie's style has become popular these days. "The God of Small Things" attempts to reach the scope of a "Midnight's Children" but if you want magico-realism, why not read the originals like Grass and Marquez? As far as her treatment of India goes, I find it patronizing and somewhat loaded with a nagging ignorance of issues (e.g. Marxism, her treatment of the caste system, law enforcement, etc.) I hope her next book is a more mature effort that doesn't resort to emotional gimmickry to get her point across. Her obsessive use of imagery and emotional drama reveals that she has yet to attain the literary sophistication and maturity of a writer.
Rating:
Summary: What's the big deal about this book?
Review: I hated it. The writing style is contrived, and downright annoying. It offers no new insights on Indian culture, nor does it even really have much of a plot to speak of. Don't waste your time on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: This book is not an easy one to read. The fluidity of the novel comes toward the middle of the novel. Roy's style is so hauntingly beautiful. I felt the characters and their emotions. I loved how she described the relationship between Esta and Rahael with their mother Ammu. The tortured souls of each charcters are so poigantly etched into the reader's minds and hearts as well. The novel takes quite a bit of turns from the main point making this reader feel a little lost. Nevertheless, this was an excellent book worth rereading.
Rating:
Summary: The language plays the character of innocence ...
Review: The two-egg twins' amazing pyrotechnics with words are a feast of language - the part of the book I enjoyed the most. In fact, this language plays the part of innocence - and, like a good Burt Bacharach song, the cadence change at the end marks the end of innocence: knowledge and corruption make their entrance - a supremely satisfying literary denouement by Roy!
Rating:
Summary: The book I will read forever!
Review: I was drawn into reading God of Small Things by its title- the curiosity to find out what kind of God is the god of small things. Indeed, I got the answer: the God of small things is the God of small things, period. Once I realized that, I then savoured this rare flavour of literature that dares to dare. Arundhati Roy writes in a way that makes readers readers. At first I thought I would have to be a specialist in Eastern philosophy to plow through this Booker-compartible fiction, gulping what I thought would turn out to be exotic mythology. I was wrong; I only needed to be a willing and patient reader. My literary group enjoyed the novel and rated it the best the group has done so far.(Of course it's the first one we chose!!!) Welldone Roy.
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