What the hell did I just read? No seriously, I am left scratching my head after trying to follow this book. I thought I was going to experience the highs and lows of a toxic and abusive mother-daughter relationship, which is a premise I am often drawn to. I have a complex relationship with my own mother, and I am also figuring out (and loving) motherhood myself with my twin girls. Instead of characters I loved, empathized with or even enjoyed on a psychological level, I got a petulant, delusional and insufferable narrator (whose name escapes me because that’s how much of an impact she left on me) who dreams of having sex with her step father, stray dogs having sex, and bodily fluids/smells ninety-nine percent of the time. Her views of mental health overall were problematic and cold. Without a protagonist that was even the least bit redeemable I was DREADING picking this up each day. The cuts between her childhood and present day gave me whiplash. This may be due to the fact that I had an unfinished eBook copy, but each paragraph it felt like I was having to figure out whether the narrator was a child or an adult. Also, what is with the depiction that Indian Americans are brainwashed idiots? I am just done with this grotesque and pointless mess of a book.

These views are mine and mine alone. Big thank you to NetGalley and The Overlook Press for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

What a haunting, disturbing, dark, yet beautifully written story!
This was not an easy read, but it captivated my full attention from the very first page to the last. Doshi captured the tangled and toxic relationship between mother and daughter with such raw beauty. This is by far one of the best books I have read this year.

Thank you Avni Doshi, NetGalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Avni Doshi's debut novel “Burnt Sugar” is a strong and disturbing work of art. I feel compelled to warn right off that you, the reader, need to be ready for what’s ahead. “Burnt Sugar” is a difficult book in every way- characters, events, language, and psychology. It is written for serious readers who have experience with multiple challenges of life. It is in no way an easy read.

With those caveats, “Burnt Sugar” has rewards for those who invest. It has clearly made an impression on The Booker Prize judges being short-listed for the 2020 prize. “Burnt Sugar” can be described in multiple ways. On one level it is simply a story of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. A mother (Tara) who emotionally abandoned her daughter (Antara) is now dependent on said daughter in the end stages of her life. Given that Tara is clearly in the throws of dementia, it is not always clear what is being remembered or discussed.

Which brings us to the second, more compelling level. “Burnt Sugar” is about memory - memories that are often harsh and cruel and maybe even inhuman. But at the end we are all human. Women are the strength of the species. There is never too much for women to bear because the alternative is unthinkable. Doshi has a powerful message to convey.

Thank you to The Overlook Press and NetGalley for the dARC. Much appreciated. (Note that the U.K, version is titled “Girl in White Cotton”).

Burnt Sugar begins with a striking line. "I would be lying if I said my mother's misery has never given me pleasure." Avni Doshi's book focuses on the changing relationship between Antara and her mother Tara. They have had a challenging relationship to say the least, and now Tara is developing signs of dementia which is further complicated their relationship. The book chronicles their relationship through Antara's childhood, where after her mother leaves her husband to join an ashram and effectively abandons her daughter, to their conflicted relationship as Antara is aging into a woman, to the current situation with Tara's declining health. Tara's relationship with her mother is also explored. While the themes of this book were interesting, I never really was fully engaged with it.

Thank you to NetGalley and ABRAMS for providing me with this advanced reader copy for review.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. I'll be posting my review on Goodreads and Amazon

A booker prize nominee. Heavy story about a daughter-mother relationship that's soured. It touches on deep and hard issues and is understandably a tough read for many. Overall its very emotional and powerful.

I wanted to DNF this book so many times and only kept going because it was an ARC. (Thank you Netgalley and Abrams for the ARC) Burnt Sugar follows an abusive mother daughter relationship as they reckon with the mother’s Alzheimer’s. Graphic, vulgar and difficult, Burnt Sugar is a book for those willing to work for it.

I was so excited to get this ARC. I don’t get approved for many since I don’t have a huge online presence, so it was super cool to be approved for one nominated for the Booker Prize. It was super good! I had seen a few reviews that made it sound like it was full of obscene descriptions of bodily fluids and a character trying to have sex with her father, which I frankly would have been fine with because I enjoy a crude story, but those were truly just ridiculously exaggerated. I barely remember anything even approaching gross, and the line about fucking her dad has nothing to do with literally doing that, it’s just an offhand comment. It’s such a good book. I don’t often finish books quickly, but I was pretty glued to this thing and finished it over two slow days of substitute teaching. I love the way she writes and I really hope she puts something else out soon. She has a really cool, almost percussive writing style of extremely short sentences that say a lot in very few words. The only thing is that sometimes that can make thing a little confusing, because there isn’t a whole lot of description in the book, so stuff can happen pretty abruptly and there were instances where it took me a paragraph or two to get what was happening. Also, there were a few instances with some surreal descriptions of the main character’s memories that made it kind of hard to understand what was happening. Like, there was something about pyramids that I’m still very confused about. Still, I really liked it. Definitely recommend checking it out.

I can’t tell if I loved this book or hated it. I’m honestly surprised I finished it but there was something that drew me in and kept me reading.
The main character and narrator is Antara, she’s faced with the task of becoming a caregiver for her ailing mother (whom she has a strained relationship with) as well as trying to further her career as an artist, and navigate the day to day of married life. She gives us a viewpoint that is rarely shown, one that shows her resentment towards her mother, the struggles of post-partum depression, and her selfish personality.

We’re given glimpses into her troubled childhood where the narrator struggled under her mother’s own self centered ways. The resentment then starts to make sense when her mother drags her to live in an ashram, leaving her father to go become a lover to a guru.

I enjoyed the story but at times it was a bit boring, and I felt like there was nothing resolved at the end. Sometimes though, it’s refreshing to read books like these. It feels almost like an art piece, one that doesn’t make any sense but it still beautiful to look at.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book!

3.5 stars/ 4 stars
This touched on some tough subjects with some unlikable characters. But that being said, I do love reading books with difficult family dynamics, especially when it’s about mother daughter relationships.

The writing seems a little sporadic, but I felt that worked with the subject matter (mostly).

This is a sad story (at least it was to me) about a mother and daughter who have seemingly always had trouble connecting and how that had affected them. It can be disturbing at times and honestly, quite maddening.

I was a painful read. But that does not take away it’s goodness.

I absolutely adore book set in India and have read a lot in my time. Is it the best book set in India that I’ve read? No. But it kept my interest throughout.

*special thanks to NetGalley for the ARC to review!

This was a real disappointment, especially for a novel that made the Booker longlist. Weak characterization, dull prose, sensationalistic plot elements, uninvolving but dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, unfunny stabs at humor or irony.

Burnt Sugar pulls you in from the very first sentence. At times I felt it was dragging and I had a difficult time keeping up, but every so often an exquisite sentence jumped at me seemingly out of nowhere and I just had to keep going.
Doshi‘s portrait of Antara, her protagonist, is skilled and nuanced. She is unlikeable and disturbed, but I still felt for her. I absolutely loved the chapters on pregnancy and motherhood and Antara’s slow —actually, maybe not that slow?—descent into madness.
Almost every character other than Antara and her mother, though, felt out of focus and unnecessary. Every mention of Reza was boring. I have no idea what made Kali Mata endearing (or even who she was). I don’t know how or why Antara ended up with her husband, and her mother in law was a bit of a caricature.
That being said, I still loved this book and I plan on reading whatever this author writes next.

At first blush, Burnt Sugar looked like an ideal fit with my interests: An examination of a difficult family dynamic, set in a culture and country foreign to me, referencing dementia, art, and the demands of motherhood. And as I read, I was always interested in (and sometimes mildly shocked by) the details that author Avni Doshi included; I was certainly never bored. But ultimately, there’s nothing very weighty or artful here — passages that appeared interesting in the moment don’t stand up on a second read through — and when I eventually learned that Doshi isn’t actually from India (she was born and raised in New Jersey, currently lives in Dubai) that seemed to explain a lot: this isn’t really an insider’s story, and even the parts that are apparently based on Doshi’s actual experiences felt written at a remove. I simply didn’t connect to this novel as much as I had hoped to.

Thanks to NetGalley and Abrams Books for allowing me an early read on Burt Sugar, recently shortlisted for the 2020 Man Book Prize. I found it completely engrossing from beginning to end, watching the mother and daughter relationship deteriorate over time. I found this book extremely sad and maddening, but this style of writing and story-telling is what I most enjoy diving into, worlds that are different from my own. I very much appreciated the depth of the novel and wanted most to give the main character, Antara, the love and support she deserves and is likely to never receive. Avni Doshi wrote a very honest ending to this story and it made the book even more compelling in the end.

Pub Date: 26 Jan 2021
Book: 86/101
Star Rating: 4.5

Well written emotionally moving & also disturbing.A story of mother daughter relationships a book that handles the subject of a child becoming Byers mothers caretaker.I really enjoyed the setting and the quirkiness of the novel.#netgalley #abramsbooks

So so hard to read. When we grow up the roles of care change and children then take care of their parents. However this isn’t always the easiest. This book centers around a child caring for her parent, who is very emotionally abusive to her, and how it impacts all aspects of her life. Very stressful and found a struggle to keep reading. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

While I did not particularly like this book, I definitely appreciated it for its writing and depth . Doshi's writing is sharp, attentive to detail, and at times unsettling. Set in Pune, India, "Burnt Sugar" follows the narrator, Antara, and her toxic but almost codependent relationship with her mother, Tara. When Antara was a child, Tara left her husband/Antara's father and took her daughter to live in an ashram for several years, where she left her largely in the care of other residents while she carried on a relationship with the cult-like ashram leader. Years later, Antara finds herself in the role of primary caregiver when Tara is diagnosed with early-onset dementia, and is forced to grapple with her complicated feelings toward and history with her mother.

I found the novel to be very thoughtful in its treatment of multiple, complex underlying themes, including mother-daughter and caregiver relationships, memory (Tara is losing her memory, while Antara is unreliable in her narration), mental health and the effect of toxic life experiences on one's stability (Antara's brutal upbringing, both in the ashram and later at a Catholic boarding school, has lasting scars), and marriage. I would recommend "Burnt Sugar" to readers who appreciate challenging, thought-provoking literature and are comfortable with the discomfort of reading something they may not particularly enjoy.

Thank you Avni Doshi, NetGalley and Abrams Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I found this book to be like life: messy, funny, random, sad. I also enjoyed reading the cultural aspects of India. Overall, I liked this quirky book! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC for review.