Above Average by Amitabha Bagchi

Novembers book group meeting was at Susie's house and we discussed 'Above Average'.  It was set in modern day India and followed the life of a middle-class student from school through to PhD in America.

We didn't like this book, we found it lacking in plot, full of cultural references to India which I'm sure would be funny if you were local to where the book was set but they went right over our heads.  We didn't really care about the characters and found it a struggle to finish the book and when we did we were disappointed by the ending, if you can call it that.  The only thing we thought had promise was the idea of writing a modern novel about the normal people in India, we've all heard of the poor and super rich and we were interested to hear about the average people.

Concept: 5/10
Plot: 3/10
Ending: 1/10
Cover: 2/10
Page Turner: 0/10
Who to slap: The Author
Where's the cheese: The uncomfortable passages where he read out his poetry about his girlfriend and her dark nipples.

Overall: 2/10

We chose our next book from the following:

• North and South by John Jakes
• The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
• House of Riverton by Kate Morgan
• The Lies of Loche Lamora by Scott Lynch
• Princess Bride by William Goldman

We chose 'The End of Mr Y' by Scarlett Thomas which we will be reading for our January meeting.