- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (6 Aug 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747553416
- ISBN-13: 978-0747553410
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,166,868 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
In Beautiful Disguises is the debut novel by Rajeev Balasubramanyam, who was born in 1974 in Lancashire but sets his charming and often very funny story in a rural village in Southern India. At first sight it seems the increasingly common tale of a rebellious young woman refusing to accept family traditions when the time comes for her to be married. Yet Balasubramanyam's witty and frank account of the heroine's escape from convention is surprisingly refreshing. The narrator knows at an early age that she is different from her silent mother, her bullying father and her compliant sister. Her only kinship is with her elder brother Ravi, an office clerk with a "bananaesque nose" who takes his frustration out on her as a way of showing familiarity. Consequently, like any outsider graced with a lively imagination, the heroine hides out in the Magick Movie House each day and dreams of becoming Holly Golightly.
Pressure mounts when her sister is forced to wed a "transatlantic demi-god" and she confesses to his grandfather that she has no intention of marrying. He advises that every actress needs a passion for cinema, "Experience of Life" and a means to acquire food, clothing and shelter--"milk, cotton, bricks". She resolves to run away and, aided by the grandfather, finds herself as a maid to a white woman who resembles "some kind of pubescent parakeet" in the city in the north, where the "air had a sootiness to it; it smelt of petrol and hard, sun-dried excrement". She cheerfully resigns herself to this being "the uninteresting period" in her life before stardom, and learns from the colourful cast of people around her that "identity is rather a matter of self-perception". Although a little over-written at times, the cheeky, determined voice of the heroine as she waits for the beautifully disguised film star in training to emerge keeps you engaged to the end.--Cherry Smyth --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Life may not be easy for a sixteen-year-old girl living in small-town South India, especially when she's blessed with a family like hers: an over-dutiful sister; a brother who watches TV as an occupation; a father who drinks and bullies his family and a silent mother. When the inevitable marriage is arranged for her, fuelled by her dreams and Audrey Hepburn movies, she runs away to The City. Secretly hoping she will step right into the shoes of her favourite character, Holly Golightly, she enters the service of the benevolent Mr Aziz. Making new friends - Raju the servant with the heart of a revolutionary, Maneka the maid who disappears each night, and Armand, Mr Aziz's arrogant but seductive son - she embraces this brave new world (acquiring a taste for croissants and champagne) but soon realises she can't run forever...
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I can't praise this book enough. The first chapter is one of the most beautiful I've ever read, and there's a sort of dazzling simplicity which I find rare in contemporary fiction. Rather than show us how clever the author is, Rajeev Balasubranamyam has created a delicious multi-layered, textured narrative that can be read on different levels, as such I think it will appear both to teenagers (the main character is 17) and to far older readers too, which should definitely include parents! for me, the book is about vulnerability and courage, and simply about life and how difficult it is to live. I can't recommend this enough...
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is what appears to be a very simple coming of age tale, but is told in such quirky and incredibly original way it seems to remain with you for months afterward, and, for me at least, brought back memories of my teenage years with extraordinary vividness. It made me laugh out loud many many times, and also cry towards the end where there was a reminder of just how bleak life, particularly teenager life is, where our ideals and fantasies are 'flattened' by the harshness of other people, meaning adults mainly.
The writing is precise, the imagery inventive, and the characters are almost larger than life in their comic vividness. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to be transported, moved, and ultimately left with a reminder that youthful idealism is still inside all of us, it's just been crushed by life...
The writing is precise, the imagery inventive, and the characters are almost larger than life in their comic vividness. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to be transported, moved, and ultimately left with a reminder that youthful idealism is still inside all of us, it's just been crushed by life...
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Balasubramanyam's first novel is a feat of sensitive, comic and breath taking writing, an endearing story of a sixteen year old girl growing up in small town South India whilst harbouring a deep desire to ransform herself into Holly Golightly. She comes of age resisting the oppression of her bully father via a stint as a maid in the city and a trip to see the ostentatious orang-utans at the zoo, all the while surrounded by a whole cast of life size, step-out-of-the-page characters. In Beautiful Disguises is charming, refined and luxurious. And blessed with a most heart warming finale. I can hardly wait to see what journey this gifted writer will take us on with his next novel.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
lively, quirky and gripping
this novel has kept me interested throughout with its unusual storyline, which looks at a number of issues without ever having the feeling that one is being preached at. Read more
Published 2 months ago by kardien
Guardian Hype
Quite a well crafted, albeit light weight, work, dealing with interesting socio-cultural issues, but not worthy of the accolades bestowed on it by the Guardian critic, who appears... Read more
Published on 21 Sep 2009 by G Cooke
Lack of substance
This novel is a complete waste of time. It is derivative (the prose is a sample of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things (which is fabulous!) in places. Read more
Published on 16 April 2006 by bookpassionspreadstheword
Fun easy read
It's a novel about a girl from South India who loves movies and has an ambition to become an actress. Read more
Published on 1 April 2006
A fun and enjoyable read
I found this book both an enjoyable and exciting read. The author's style is fantastic at drawing you in and creating a new heroine's world which is filled by fantasty and dream. Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2003
Never judge a book by it's cover!!!!
This is the first book i bought purely by the look and sound of the cover and the blurb at the back...what a mistake! Read more
Published on 18 Nov 2001
An ambitious but unsatisfying novel
In Beautiful Disguises seems to have a fair amount of literary ambition, but I'm sorry to say it isn't a good novel - whatever the Guardian, Telegraph etc.. Have said about it. Read more
Published on 15 Aug 2001
Ambitious but unsatisfying first novel
'In Beautiful Disguises' has won a literary prize in the shape of a Betty Trask award, and it seems to have a fair amount of literary ambition, but I'm sorry to say it isn't a good... Read more
Published on 30 Dec 2000
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