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A Burning
- A Read with Jenna Pick
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Priya Ayyar, Deepti Gupta, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah, Ulka Simone Mohanty
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
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A Burning
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Publisher's Summary
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK! • A "gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary" (USA Today) about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely—an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor—has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.
Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning is an electrifying debut.
What the critics say
WINNER OF THE WHITING AWARD • A New York Times Notable Book • National Book Award Nominee • One of the Guardian's Best Books of the Year • National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award Nominee • American Library Accociation Andrew Carnegie Medal Finalist
"Riveting. . . . Fate has rarely been so many-faced, so muscular, so mercurial, or so mesmerizing as it is in A Burning."—The New York Times Book Review (cover)
"Powerful... propulsive...This is a book to relish for its details, for the caress of the writer’s gaze against the world... The interplay of choice and circumstance has always been the playing field of great fiction, and on this terrain, a powerful new writer stakes her claim."—Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
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What listeners say about A Burning
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Y. E. KO
- 2021-03-10
Meh
Slow to start.
The story doesn’t go anywhere. Quite disappointed when it ends. Feel like each character doesnt really connect with one another although the the characters’ descriptions are vivid.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- andrew
- 2020-06-28
Metaphor for our times
(Contains mild spoilers.)
Superb performances by the readers make this leap out of the page more like a radio drama than a novel with the unscrupulous teacher, unfortunate clothing sales assistant and the very fortunate hijra all very well read by the narrators. It is now quite familiar in novels for the voice to flip between various characters in sequential chapters and it works very well in this book.
Terrorism, the uses and abuses of social media impacting the lives of novice (and experienced) users and the dark stain of corruption are themes throughout together with poverty and overt racism between the different groups of the population. This is happening world wide, this novel happens to be in India but it could be anywhere.
In my naivety I thought that PT Sir would be exposed as a charlatan enabling Jivan's trial to be declared a mistrial but, well, I won't expand.
Unusual for books to end with such a downer. The great success of the two surviving characters both depended on their interactions with Jivan, who paid the ultimate sacrifice, but isn't this the story of humanity?
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- ZS
- 2021-03-10
Portrait of anti Muslim racism in India
This book does a good job portraying the biased anti Muslim fabric of Indian society. At times I felt the story had some gaps but in general an interesting read.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- MCK
- 2020-09-25
Great performances, compelling story
3 excellent narrators made the characters come to life! Pathos and humor throughout the story
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1 person found this helpful