Book club read: Sister of my Heart

I have to give this one an A-. I rarely like a book that much. Only one or two books deserve A+ so an A- is really good. I laughed out loud when Anju met her future husband, I cried for Sudha and Anju at many points, I enjoyed learning a little bit more about this country many miles away even if it was just fictional. I trust the author since she was born and raised in India similiar to "Kite Runner". I would recommend this great book about choices and love. Warning: When Anju goes to America she tries a bit of "USA cursing". It's limited to the 1st-2nd page in that chapter, but I'm never a fan of any offensive language in a book. I'm reading to be uplifted, challenged, not to be cursed at. So skip the 2 pages and read a beautiful, lyrical piece. And tell me in the comments what you are reading... I'm starting to wonder just who it is that is visiting since just Tassi & Rachelle are the ones responding :)


From the jacket cover:
Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family of distinction. Sudha is the daughter of the black sheep of that same family. Sudha is startlingly beautiful; Anju is not. Despite these differences, since the day the two girls were born--the same day their fathers died, mysteriously and violently--Sudha and Anju have been sisters of the heart. Bonded in ways even their mothers cannot comprehend, the two girls grow into womanhood as if their fates, as well as their hearts, are merged.When Sudha learns a dark family secret, that connection is threatened. For the first time in their lives, the girls know what it is to feel suspicion and distrust--Sudha, because she feels a new shame that she cannot share with Anju; and Anju, because she discovers the seductive power of her sister's beauty, a power Sudha herself is incapable of controlling. When, due to a change in family fortune, the girls are urged into arranged marriages, their lives take opposite turns. One travels to America, and one remains in India; both have lives of secrets. When tragedy strikes both of them, however, they discover that, despite distance and marriage, they must turn to each other once again.Exceptionally moving, dramatic, and exquisitely rendered, Sister of My Heart is a passionate novel about the extraordinary bond between two women, and the jealousies, loves, and family histories that threaten to tear them apart. Only a novelist of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's sensitivity could create a tale as potent as it is poignant, and as true to the complexities of the human heart.