Rating: 
Summary: Unfulfilling... I wanted more!
Review: If you're looking for a book with substance or underlying meaning, find another book. Yes, the book is entertaining, but it's a pointless entertainment. The ending totally leaves you hanging and there's no sense of closure at all. However, if you're idea of a good time is reading about a naughty kid who's prematurely fascinated by sex and naked people, then this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Unfulfilling... I wanted more!
Review: If you're looking for a book with substance or underlying meaning, find another book. Yes, the book is entertaining, but it's a pointless entertainment. The ending totally leaves you hanging and there's no sense of closure at all. However, if you're idea of a good time is reading about a naughty kid who's prematurely fascinated by sex and naked people, then this book is for you.
Rating: 
Summary: A Beautiful read
Review: In 1970's Bombay, eight-year-old Cyrus Readymoney dreams of movie stars and girls, but not necessarily in that order. He goes to the movies as often as he can. When he is not inside the cinema, Cyrus dreams of sexual encounters. At times he is reminded that he does have indifferent parents with troubles of their own when they reappear in his life to either lecture him or state they love him. However, Cyrus' near perfect world collapses when his father suddenly dies, leaving him to fend for himself in a much more vicious environment. This coming of age novel is a wonderful tale because of Cyrus who may very well turn out to be the preadolescent of the year in fiction. Cyrus' musings on time would have been adopted by Einstein in his time-space continuum. 1970's Bombay, through the eyes of the lad, is a brilliant tour that readers ought to take. In his delightful debut novel, Ardashir Vakil provides a lush painting of life in India. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: very disappointed
Review: this book came much recommended and i was soundly disappointed by it. the author is presumptuous, his writing is smug. the characters are flaky, two-dimensional, and obtuse at their very best.
i did not sympathise with the protagonist, nor could i relate to the storyline which is an account of a pseudo-indian identity in a totally non-indian psychological environment.
Rating: 
Summary: An average coming of age story
Review: This is a story about Cyrus Readymoney, a Parsi boy, growing up in Mumbai in the early 1970s. It's pretty much your standard coming-of-age novel - early sexual experimentations, dealing with death, trying to figure out adults' strange attitudes and behaviour and so on. There are lots of echoes of Narayan's "Swami and Friends", though the setting in a dysfunctional Parsi family is somewhat unusual. But, as with "Swami and Friends", the main weakness of the novel is that the boy's view of the world becomes mixed up with that of the mature adult author. I felt that either the narration should be an adult's recollections of his youth, or the world viewed through the eyes of the boy, not both at the same time. That being said, there are very good pieces of writing in the book - the trip to rural India in particular, and at least I now know what a Nirodh is. The ending I found rather sudden and unsatisfactory - perhaps just like this review.
Rating:
Summary: A great book, extremely well written
Review: Vakil took me to my own childhood. His style of writing got me thinking of all things I did as a kid. This is one of those books that provides light reading but then sort of resonates in your head for a while. Also love Vakil's great sense of humour.
Rating:
Summary: A great book, extremely well written
Review: Vakil took me to my own childhood. His style of writing got me thinking of all things I did as a kid. This is one of those books that provides light reading but then sort of resonates in your head for a while. Also love Vakil's great sense of humour.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Book to read on a holiday or on the beach !
Review: Vakil's debut book - Beach Boy has received wide acclaim winning the Betty Trask Award and also being part of Salman Rushdies book on the best of Indian writing. The story is about an affluent indian boy living in the city of Mumbai and the various people around him, his life which is exciting tumultuous and intresting. A fast paced book which will leave you very sleepy the next day.... a book for all ages and classes. His language is simple but it slowly seduces you and you get sucked in by his innocence, charm and wit. A must buy.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful
Review: Very well written, even-toned debut which presents, in short vignettes, a tumultuous year in the life of an upper middle-class Bombay 10-year old boy, circa 1972. One of the running themes is food, another is film, although these are very vivid, they sort of pop in and out, sometimes rather forcedly. Granted, the food scenes make the mouth water, even if one isn't really sure what is being described, but the film scenes fail to elicit the same level of enchantment. Many of the short chapters are obviously semi-autobiographical, and many of the events read like personal experiences, not fiction. One minor annoyance is the decision to leave in swaths of romanized and untranslated Urdu, which isn't typographically set off in any way.
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