You know a book intends to disturb you when it begins with a woman undergoing forensic examination after rape. We soon find out who the woman is — Aparna, a staunch feminist and rationalist who has come under fire for her views. Set very firmly in the present, in an India under a government that props up Islamophobia and Hindu nationalism, the book explores this environment of hate and divisiveness. Many things in the book are trigerring, not least the conversations that Aparna has with family and friends, who are more concerned with ensuring her compliance/silence, than with the blatant injustices perpetrated in the name of religion. If these conversations, and the faux news headlines  that appear in the novel seem all too real — they are. Opposing Aparna is Hari, a Hindu nationalist who is bigoted and patriarchal. Aparna's daughter Naseem and Hari's daughter Kashi, are the other major players in this book. The heart of the book, in fact, lies in the mother-daughter relationships between Aparna and Naseem; and Kashi and Lata. These complicated relationships, and the push and pull that politics brings into them are all too relatable. There is a sense that the book is written with a non-Indian audience in mind (italicized Desi words, for example) but not so much that a Desi audience will feel alienated.  Everything comes to a head in the memorable last chapter that throws up everything from unexpected sisterhood, to predictable tragedy, to a tiny flame of hope. The book ends so abruptly that I wondered if I had pages missing in my copy, but then  on a closer reading I realized that the author had said everything she needed to, with an image she leaves us with, of a woman's young daughter pulling her mother onto a different path. I'm sure I will be thinking of this for many days to come, and writing many different endings in my own head. This was a brilliant read that I highly recommend.