This collection of short stories, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, blows me away. The author is an Indian female living in my old neighborhood, the San Francisco Bay area. The stories talk about husbands, children, work, school, love and ambition. They are the most modern feminine stories I have ever read.

Maybe it's because the idea of an arranged marriage strips away the necessary "happily-ever-after" fairy tale we have in the west, maybe because the Indian women feel the pull of family and children so strongly..I don't know. Maybe we have heard the feminist views here in America so long that our sincere concern for children and mothers and brothers as equally important to our personal ambition feels like a guilty secret.

The emphasis on societal pressures reminds me a lot of Jane Austen. That, and the very pragmatic view of marriage. Let's be real, kids. Marriage is very much a practical affair. Love waxes and wanes, but the solidity of married life has to remain.

I find this book affirms the real details of female life. The scariness of having children, or not having them. The struggle to evolve as a person without disrupting the lives of your loved ones. Others' expectations of you, and your expectations for yourself.

The stories are beautiful, utterly practical, and haunting.