Stevie‘s review of Under the Jeweled Sky by Alison McQueen
Historical Fiction published by Sourcebooks Landmark 21 Jan 14
It’s not often I give up on a book, but in this case I struggled to make the halfway point before deciding that life is too short and precious a thing for me to waste any more of it reading a story I really didn’t get on with. Still, I’m sure I learned valuable lessons about what does and doesn’t work for me in a novel in the process, and thus I am hopefully a better person for the hours I spent on it.
The book jumps around a lot between the late 1950s and the late 1940s, and while I normally enjoy non-linear storytelling, in this case I’m not sure what the point is, other than to perhaps give the book more of a literary, as opposed to women’s fiction, feel. Likewise, some of the sentences are very long (and I know I’m guilty of that at times too) to the point that I had to go back to the start of some and reread before figuring out what was going on.
At the story’s opening in 1957, Sophie visits her mother, after a separation of almost ten years. The reunion goes badly, but the narrative is too detached for me to care much about why. Generally I prefer third-person narratives to first-person, but in this case I wonder if we’d have been better getting the entire story directly from Sophie. It would certainly have helped with the pacing.
Having met Sophie and her dreadful mother, we’re then taken back to 1948 and Sophie has gone out, with her parents, to the soon-to-be-independent India. Her father is one of the doctors in the household of an obscure Maharaja, while her mother spends her days being obnoxious to the local people – no escaping the casual racism in this book – and encouraging Sophie to work in a Christian mission rather than ‘wasting’ her days in the library or with another English woman (who secretly visits the Maharaja’s wives in their seclusion). Meanwhile, Sophie has also befriended the son of one of the Maharaja’s bearers, and this develops into a romance with disastrous, long-lasting consequences for them both. (Highlight following for spoiler.) i.e. Sophie gets pregnant and they are both sent away when their parents find out.
Returning to the older Sophie in 1957, she is considering marrying her awful boyfriend, who is soon to be posted to India by the foreign office. I stopped reading at the point where it’s revealed that she has married him and, now out in India, he is becoming more and more obnoxious and abusive.
Maybe the second half of this book was better. I really couldn’t face reading on and risking further disappointment.
Grade: DNF
Read Veena’s review here.
Summary:
A breathtaking story of forbidden love and devastating consequences…
The moment Sophie steps onto India’s burning soil, she realizes her return was inevitable. But this is not the India she fell in love with ten years before in a maharaja’s palace. This is not the India that ripped her heart out as Partition tore the country in two. That India, a place of tigers, scorpions, and shimmering beauty, is long gone.
Drawing on her own family’s heritage, acclaimed novelist Alison McQueen beautifully portrays the heart of a woman who must confront her past in order to fight for her future. Under the Jeweled Sky deftly explores the loss of innocence, the urgent connection in our stars, and how we’ll go to find our hearts.
Read an excerpt.
