Ru Freeman

I will start off this review with some information about the author. According to a Guardian.com website book review, the author was raised in an aristocratic Sri Lankan family. Her grasp of the Sri Lankan caste system, the political tensions that have impacted her country and the details of the clash between a modern world of denim jeans/T-shirts and traditional coming of age rights of passages for girls, are poignant and captured well. What I struggled with was the characters, and in particular, Latha. I get that she is chaffing at the binds that tie her to the servant class status she has in Thara's household, and before that in the household of Thara's parents, but she just never comes across as anything more than a shallow individual who equates social position with owning good quality leather sandals. Seriously, you have to read the book to understand why I am saying this. Latha makes choices that I just cannot accept. I am not saying that the circumstances she finds herself in are deserved - this book has some great examples of a family that is prepared to blatantly lie, even to each other, to protect social position - but she just goes about trying to improve her life in all the wrongs ways. The Biso story is better - this is one of those books with two story-lines it keeps shifting back and forth between - and I found it easier to relate to Biso and her trials. Maybe part of my trouble with this one is the audiobook narration. Parts of the book seemed to jumble in my mind and the reader's voice as she pronounced Thara's name started to really grate on me after awhile... just a little to emphatic with the Thara's. I also struggled a bit in determining the time period for the book. I finally settled on the book covering the period from the start of the Sri Lankan Civil War in the early 1980s to the publication date of the book, 2009, but I could be wrong.

Overall, an okay read with great representation of Sri Lanakan society and class prejudices with minor glimpses into the Sri Lankan politics, struggles and geography. Aptly titled.… (mere)

Taking a month to concentrate on international authors has exposed me to so many gems. Ru Freeman's A Disobedient Girl is one.

The way she tells the story of a young woman who is a servant to the daughter of a wealthy family in parallel with a woman who has lost everything kept me guessing the connection. I enjoy stories which keep me asking "Where is she going with this?"

And so, in the last chapter or so, we learn about the cyclical nature of one family's tragedy, and the class system which encourages the systemic oppression of women.

What a well-written, often heart-wrenching story!… (mere)