Today we’re discussing a brand-new book titled I WILL BLOSSOM ANYWAY by Disha Bose. This is a book about a young expat, Durga, who has moved from her native Calcutta, India to Ireland. Durga comes from an educated, middle-class family that observes traditional Indian ways, including “arranged” marriages. Durga is anxious to escape what she thinks of as the confines of her family and learn who she is without them around telling her who she must be. However, leaving their opinions behind is not as easy as she thinks it will be. This novel explores cultural differences and family conflicts but in a tender way. It would be a great beach read. Linny loved the cover. Maybe it stood out because Linny usually reads books on her black and white Kindle! The publisher, Ballantine – an imprint of Random House -- sent us hard copies of this book. But, besides seeing it in full-color, Linny liked the illustration and the flowers. Families play a big part of this story: how families shape us and who we are with and without our families around. We get to know two families very well: Durga’s family in busy Calcutta and also the family of her roommate who is also the sister of her boyfriend, Jacob. Durga’s family is multi-generational, loud, large, nosy, and loving, but too conservative for her tastes. Her boyfriend’s family is small and fractured. Jacob and his sister, Joy, are very, very close. Nancy observes that sometimes in more unstable families, siblings may cling to each other. Of course, other times, siblings reflect the bickering of their parents. In this book, they are a strong support to each other. Their parents do love them. Nancy liked the detail that Joy had a different and more negative perspective of their family than Jacob did. She felt this was realistic since siblings do have different experiences and perspectives. Linny also noticed that and liked that insight. Nancy felt that Durga’s siblings battled for their parents’ and grandparents’ attention and approval. Joy did not care about her parents’ approval. Nancy felt Durga was attracted to Jacob, initially, because her little lunch group at work deemed Jacob as the number one crush. He was good looking and wore a suit well. Durga is still looking for approval so adopts him as her crush, too. When she gets to know Jacob, she gets to know how great he really is. Linny notes that Durga was looking for bonds. For the first time in her life, she isn’t surrounded by her family, which took up so much of her time, she didn’t really even learn how to make friends. Linny notes that Durga is so young and also sheltered, so she is somewhat immature in knowing how to be a friend or girlfriend. Durga is really conflicted about who she is and who she wants to become. When Linny described this book to Nancy, she said it’s basically a coming-of-age story. Having read it, Nancy agrees. It’s really about Durga finding out who she wants to be as an adult, away from her family. The framing of her journey starts in the first paragraphs of Chapter One. Linny laughs and asks Nancy whether authors spend a lot of time on their opening paragraphs. Nancy says they do because it is a microcosm of the entire story. Nancy reads Disha’s opening lines: “According to Hindu mythology, the all-forgiving Goddess Durga, pure of heart, became ensnared in a losing battle against a demon who was set to destroy all of humankind. When Goddess Durga stopped to look around the battlefield, she found nothing but death and destruction. She became frenzied with fury, at her own weakness against the demon, at the futility of this battle. That was when Kali appeared. Durga’s other form, her dark alter ego. Kali emerged right out of Durga’s forehead wielding a sword, wearing nothing but a sari made of a tiger’s skin. Kali was invincible… She was on the warpath now, and in her anger couldn’t distinguish between good and evil anymore. So enraged was she that she wanted everyone and everything dead… My parents named me Durga, perhaps in the hope that I might embody the Goddess’s virtues of integrity and goodness. But I yearned to feel the full force of Kali, for her to make my toes tingle, straining to be let out.” Nancy admires how these lines set up the overall plot line that Durga is not happy with who she is. Linny agrees it is a great set up because it represents the two sides of her: a timid girl and an emerging self who will be assertive. Disha comes back to this goddess story several times throughout the book. Linny liked the sibling aspect of the story. Durga is the middle child, just like Linny! Durga feels her sister, Tia, is more charming and has her parents’ approval, her brother is more light-hearted, her younger sister is smarter. Durga has never figured out who she is. She has been a peacemaker and doer who tries not to make waves in the family and trying to stay under the radar and survive the chaos – just like Linny! Nancy also picked up on the middle child challenges, and also gender. Part of Durga’s family’s conservatism means that she feels she can’t introduce Jacob to them because he is partially Black and certainly not Indian. Jacob and she are also coworkers and Durga doesn’t even want anyone at work to know they’re dating, either, even though Durga notes that it wouldn’t be a problem and could easily be addressed by filling out an HR form. The secrecy finally gets to Jacob when Durga invites Joy, not him, to join her to travel back to India for her sister’s wedding. This leads to Jacob and Durga’s breakup after two years. Nancy was frustrated with Durga that she kept Jacob secret from her family and didn’t even give them a chance. Linny said she had to keep reminding herself that Durga was so young and still wanted her family’s approval. Nancy notes Jacob doesn’t want a repeat of his family where his mother’s family did not accept her marriage to Jacob’s family. Linny notes her family members also have arcs. Durga thinks they won’t accept him. They didn’t even know she had a boyfriend, when she mentions him, finally. They are stunned that Durga doesn’t trust them with that information. Linny thinks that Durga’s parents have changed in recognizing they are parenting adult children. Nancy thought Durga’s parents’ acceptance of the concept of Jacob came a little too easily in the story. She thought, at least, there should be more information about why Durga got it so wrong. It could also be, that since her siblings’ lives were crumbling around them and around the family, they were too distracted to give Durga’s issues much attention. Nancy thinks children can continue to look at their parents from the eyes of their childhood and not recognize how they may have changes. Durga’s parents are clearly more liberal than Durga realizes. Linny likes how Durga’s move to Ireland has inspired her siblings’ assertion. Nancy liked that, too, and Tia’s visit to Durga in Ireland. Durga’s brother, Arjun, runs off with their cousin’s wife who also has been mistreated and he trusts Durga with the information about where they are. Even the youngest sibling comes around to Durga. Then, of course, this story deals a lot with grief. Jacob dies from an aneurysm. This sends Joy and her family, and of course, Durga into a spiral of grief and remorse. Nancy thought Disha’s portrayal of grief was very good. Each character grieves in a different way. Linny felt most for Joy, since she loved and relied on her brother for so much, and then she loses her close relationship with Durga. Nancy notes that the book starts with Durga meeting a stranger, Niall, by the riverbank. She is waiting to meet with Jacob to see if they can get back together. Niall asks her out and she wavers. Durga things about him throughout the book. Nancy kept thinking the story was going to end with Niall’s reappearance, especially since the last scene takes place on that very riverbank. Linny also thought Durga was going to get together with Niall. Nancy and Linny were disappointed that Durga, instead, starts a relationship with her situationship, Luke. They didn’t seem to have much of an intellectual connection. They feel Durga is settling for Luke. Nancy asks Linny whether she feels Durga found her alter ego, Kali. Linny says she’s a work in progress. She thinks Durga should just not get serious with anyone for a while. Grieve. Figure out how to be a friend. Have some experiences. Nancy liked the story and Linny did, too, a lot. Linny does think this would be a great beach read, too. Durga is a great character.