Rating: 
Summary: Heavy-handed, Tone-deaf, and Moralistic
Review: Anita Desai has been celebrated by some for her ear for dialogue, but she gets it all wrong here. Her presentation of life in the United States is especially obvious. Her characters, living in Massachusetts, talk like they are in Texas. The American daughter, predictably, is a bulemic, something that may strike Indian readers as novel but in Desai's hands is nothing more than a cliche (Feasting, Fasting--get it?) And she seems terribly amused by her young American jock's pastime of "jogging," a word that a real American high school football player wouldn't be caught dead using.As for her chapters set in India, Desai allows ideology (i.e., feminism) to drive her narrative, with predictable results. Is the way she incorporates dowry death into her story any less of a cliche in India than the way she utilizes the bulemic girl (who has no other distinguishing characteristics) in order to describe American excess? Unfortunately, American readers of Anglophone Indian fiction are so often overwhelmed by the exoticism of these stories that they fail to seperate the wheat (Rushdie, Roy, Pankaj Mishra) from the chaff (Desai, Divakaruni).
Rating:
Summary: Heavy-handed, Tone-deaf, and Moralistic
Review: Anita Desai has been celebrated by some for her ear for dialogue, but she gets it all wrong here. Her presentation of life in the United States is especially obvious. Her characters, living in Massachusetts, talk like they are in Texas. The American daughter, predictably, is a bulemic, something that may strike Indian readers as novel but in Desai's hands is nothing more than a cliche (Feasting, Fasting--get it?) And she seems terribly amused by her young American jock's pastime of "jogging," a word that a real American high school football player wouldn't be caught dead using. As for her chapters set in India, Desai allows ideology (i.e., feminism) to drive her narrative, with predictable results. Is the way she incorporates dowry death into her story any less of a cliche in India than the way she utilizes the bulemic girl (who has no other distinguishing characteristics) in order to describe American excess? Unfortunately, American readers of Anglophone Indian fiction are so often overwhelmed by the exoticism of these stories that they fail to seperate the wheat (Rushdie, Roy, Pankaj Mishra) from the chaff (Desai, Divakaruni).
Rating: 
Summary: Delves into the Inner Sanctum of an Orthodox Indian Family
Review: from BlueJeanOnline.com
by Dashini Ann Jeyathurai, age 19, Teen Correspondent In Fasting, Feasting, Anita Desai takes on a task that many Indian and expatriate authors have deemed Herculean in nature, a task that involves delving into the inner sanctum of an orthodox Indian family in India. Many who have attempted this challenge failed and came out looking ignorant and insensitive of certain aspects of the culture. Few have succeeded, and among them is Anita Desai. The reader is faced with several poignant issues played upon in a middle-class family attempting to deal with modernization, but they ultimately that realize life is meant to be lived in their society. A society with a veritable amount of prejudices weaved into its complex tapestry of customs and beliefs. The story in itself is told from the perspective of the protagonist, Uma, who starts out as a wide-eyed child at a convent who has an enthusiasm for education and an awe of the enigmatic nuns who seem to glide through the school grounds. Unlike her younger sister Aruna, our protagonist does not have the privilege of having "books marked healthily in green and blue for success and approval." Instead, with the birth of her brother Arun, Uma takes on the role of nanny. Here, one encounters the distinct preference her parents have for the male child - a practice that was not uncommon at the time. The teenage Uma questions this sexism when she points out that an ayah had looked after both Aruna and herself as children. Why wasn't the ayah's care sufficient for a male child? Desai next explores the conventional belief that tied a woman's worth to her physical appearance. A woman who lacked beauty was often rushed into the first marital offer she received, only to pay a heavy price later on. Desai shows the challenges a single woman faces regardless of how successful she is. By contrast, Uma's cousin is portrayed as the ultimate success because she is able to marry well thanks to her looks. One wonders how happy she truly was, however, when she eventually takes her own life. Arun, Uma's brother, takes center stage several chapters into the book as he begins his studies in America, where he meets the dysfunctional Patton family. Arun is faced with unlimited freedom and grapples with an alien culture in which his landlord's daughter periodically vomits after meals and Ms. Patton is almost a non-entity in the family. Ultimately, Anita Desai has established herself as one of India's finest fiction writers. To me, great authors are the ones who can make you keep turning the pages, eager to read the next line although there may be more pressing matters at hand - and Desai fulfills that description....
Rating: 
Summary: Two lives
Review: I am amazed at some of the negative or lukewarm reviews this book has received. I read this when it was first published and was left breathless. I was in a state of bliss. This is what literature is supposed to be, I thought. This book, the first I had read by Anita Desai, restored my faith in fiction. I have been dissatisfied with the state of fiction for years and was ecstatic that I had found a book that could please me in a way that only great art is capable of doing. It is unfortunate that Desai has not received the popular acclaim that she deserves, despite her critical acclaim. She will undoubtedly be recognized as one of the best writers of the late twentieth century. I simply cannot say enough about this powerful, beautifully written, and subtle novel.
Rating:
Summary: A Dual and Honest View
Review: I must say, I find some of the negative comments of others surprising since I felt this to be the most compelling of Desai's books. I think that it is deceptively simple and quite profound in parts. I have read it twice and upon the first the reading I admit that I did not think that I stumbled on to something special. But something told me I should consider it further, because like an unexpected feast, it was memorable. I felt so pulled by it that I actually decided it would be a book worth sharing with my students. They are currently in the process of reading it and enjoying her prose while considering the novel's subtle undertones. Unlike many other novels, this one does not gloss over or pretend to hide the obvious flaws and irrationality of either the Indian or American culture. Instead, it delivers a poignant, often startling, and ultimately, I think, positive view of acceptance--of one's life, of one's family and of one's culture. As far as the ending is concerned, it is wholly truthful. What aspect of life ends with any real sense of closure? Like Desai's characters, we only move and meander along, unsure of our footing at times. Her ability to draw out richness from the limited simplicity of her characters lives is quite remarkable. The more I reflect on the novel, the more I am impressed with her insight and intelligence.
Rating:
Summary: A DUAL VISION OF CULTURE AND COMPLEX FEELINGS
Review: In this novel, very well written (maybe Desai's best), we find a brother and a sister, America and India. The former, represented trough the exploration of freedom (Arun, the brother studying in the U.S.) and the latter by the weight of tradition ( Uma, the sister in India) within the indian family. With the usual precision and character sensibility, the author describes in depth a universe of contrasts, a duality of visions between two cultures, encompassing both the historical structures that give birth to different values and the permanent ligthness of human dreams, which seems to be universal.
Rating:
Summary: A view of two differant cultures
Review: The books deals with two differant cultures. First part of the book highlights the Indian traditions, cultures and mostly the place of a woman in an Indian family. Anita Desai has done an excellent job in describing the indian family to every single detail of existance. Though this type of families still exists in India, Please do not generalise this view to the whole nation. It is only a 40% of families that could relate to the book specially in states where literacy is meagre. I must say however, there are lots of uma's in India, today, and all they need is a little encouragement with education and exposure to the outside world, and she could definitely be a very strong woman. I loved this character of Uma in the book because she was both willing to take a chance with life and at the same time dedicated to her family. And she took all that happened to her life with such grace that she did not give me a chance to cry for her. Thats her inner strength. The second part of the book deals with the dillemma of Arun in a world which he could not have imagined. Arun, the younger brother of Uma reaches Massachusettes for his higher studies, and is totally taken aback by the lifestyles of the west. The most beautiful part of the book is its literatrue. So well written and with accurate details, its definitely a joyful read.
Rating:
Summary: delightful reading though confusing message
Review: This is the first book of Anita Desai I read. Her observations are astute whether they are on living conditions in India or USA. She uses witty and satirical language which keeps reader's mood light. I had difficulty understanding what message she is trying to send through her novel. For one, life is miserable whether one lives in India or USA, which is a pathetic outlook. Secondly, in spite of different living conditions people behave basically the same way to situations in life. There is no strong story here. Just description of characters and small incidences to enhance characterization but Anita Desai uses her words perfectly to convey exactly what she feels. She uses commonly used words, nothing flashy, to keep the reader engrossed in her characters, makes one turn page after page. I was never bored to read any page.
I felt Uma's character was ended rather abruptly. Arun would have been more human if he would have felt occasional pangs of homesickness and brooded over few pleasant memories of his childhood.
I would strongly recommmend this book to anyone who is interested in comparing living in India and in USA.
Rating: 
Summary: Places Are Not What They Seem
Review: This is the first novel I've ever read by an Indian Author, so I have no frame of reference within which to compare this novel. Desai certainly has her own merits as a writer and her own opinions as a viewer of the world, but her effort comes out a little uneven and undisciplined. The novel starts off very masterfully and alluringly. Desai, at times, has an excellent prose style that is really more poetic than prosaic. The opening chapter with the initial characterization of MamaPapa and insect imagery and the cadences of her porch-swing description/metaphor are all very promising and well worth an English major's explication. I was reeled in by this first chapter like few other times I have ever read a novel. But Desai doesn't sustain this throughout the novel. There are flashes of brilliance, certainly, but all-in-all her prose-style and narrative-weaving are uneven. I found myself disappointed in terms of her actual verbal display throughout the novel. The structure of the novel is rather simple, also. Simply put, the reader reads "I" and "II" - the novel is a diptych. "I", which comprises over 2/3 of the novel and centers around the elder daughter Uma, ends with a somewhat inaccessible image of Uma standing in a river (no, this is not a fatal occurrence). Immediately, Desai shifts from India to the U.S. where Uma's younger son, Arun, has come to study at college. From there, you only have about a 60 pages or so read which was nice and thoughtful, but would have been better with more development. What Desai does best, however, is explore the different qualities of life offered by examples of both typically Indian life and typically American life. Through the acquiescence of Uma to her very cut-out and preordained life in India and Arun's cooly observant and internalized reaction to American suburbia, the reader can well imagine that such a superior/inferior American/Indian (respectively) dichotomy is far from applicable. Instead, one can see through the fates and actions of Uma and Arun very real tensions between different value systems and appreciate the differences between them. Overall, Desai gets a B for artistry and A- for content (more development would have been nice). It's really worth the quick (circa 230 light pages) read.
Rating:
Summary: terrible
Review: this is the story of a young indian boy trapped in a dysfunctional indian family who travels to america to study and ends up an exchange student in the house of a dysfunctional american family. the story raises questions of nationality versus human nature, the loneliness of the human soul, and the search for affection in a world devoid of love. while the story itself may have worked, it's written in a boring, almost expository manner. desai doesn't spend time developing her characters and they come across as flat. they seem puppets in a play rather than people. the novel is extremely plot driven and jam packed with too many issues and too little exploration. i would rather have a simple story and a world of breathing, true to life characters than a story filled with issues and characters that don't emote. this book gave me a good look at how not to write prose.
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