The granddaughter project is the story of three women who write letters to their granddaughters telling them about their lives. These three women form an unlikely friendship with each other due to their shared sufferings. Kamla is an Indian Bengali woman, Helga is Vienesse and Lynette is West Indian. Their racially and culturally different backgrounds do not prevent them from forming a bond as nothing brings people together like collective sorrow. Their granddaughters do not see this communication coming. Their granddaughters – Maya, Rebecca and Tanya live in very different realities from their grandmothers, but reading their letters has an impact on them nevertheless.
The granddaughter project is an all encompassing story about the struggles faced by women, no matter what background they come from. This story is replete with devastating events and tragedies and how these events impacted these three women. This book has covered some very important historical events through the stories of these three women. Kamla’s story talks about the Bengal Famine of 1934, Helga’s story talks about the Holocaust and Lynette’s story talks about the Notting Hill Race Riots of 1958. These women face inequality, molestation and heartbreaks, in addition to the harrowing consequences of their social situations. As a woman, I felt total solidarity with Kamla, Helga and Lynette. I obviously related more to the granddaughters in the story because my reality is closer to theirs. However, since the letters were addressing the three granddaughters, there were many passages that spoke directly to me and as a result of that, I felt very connected to this story.
One cannot help but admire the strength of character that all three women display despite going through some terrible experiences. This story is the testament of the indomitable spirit of women and as much as I appreciate that, I also feel sad that women are forced to show this kind of toughness. Why must women go through soul crushing experiences for the world to see how powerful they can be? Alas, this is a question that is asked even today.
Inspite of the heavy and intense topics this book deals with, it was a very quick read for me. The story is very engaging and in addition to that, the writing is very impressive as well. There is a lot of compassion and empathy in how this story has been written and that only added to the cry worthiness of this book.
In conclusion, I absolutely loved this book and I highly recommend that you read it.
My rating – 5 stars
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