What readers think of Honor, plus links to write your own review.

If you read A Space Between US you will enjoy this book.
The characters were well defined and the country described as I remembered it. The second half of the book got me totally involved. Enjoy!

Thrity Umrigar takes us on a journey to India to show us the binding nature of culture, family and love in the what we identify as "home."

You will engage with Smita, Meena, Mohan and Abru through Umrigar's engrossing writing. This is not a book of distance but you will intimately learn and grow with these characters.

"Honor" is written with a compassion, power and insight that leads us all to answer the question of what home is.

I loved A Space Between Us and looked forward to reading Honor. Even though I have been to India and witnessed much...what Honor provided was a true friendship and love between 2 women who never would have met if not for the crime committed. How sad if this was loosely based on a true story.

Since reading The Space Between Us which was one of the best I've read gracing the lives of two Indian women, now Honor does the same. I found much love in the novel. Love for India, love of friendship, kindness and spirit. It was a wonderful read, especially the last quarter.

I did not realize it until I sat back and really thought about what I would write for this review. Honor is at the heart of every character, whether you love or hate them, stand back and attempt to step into their shoes. All players are so passionate - Meena, her brothers, her mother-in-law, Smita, Mohan, and the interpreter, Nandini, along with the few that I left out.

The story is one of tremendous courage and raw emotion, pure love and deep hate, and yet in the end, there is still hope.

Overall, Honor, for me, is a love story. It exhausted me to read it, but I am so very glad I did.

The story is engrossing but the subject matter brutal and brings to mind real news stories about horrible violence against women in India and religious bigotry leading to disfigurement and murder. This book is a quick read but the events that result in a journalist investigating a story about a so-called honor killing in a small town in India and subsequent events at the conclusion of the court case against the killers are horrifying and may be triggering to some readers. While the author ultimately offers a glimmer of hope for a few of the characters, I felt that it came at great cost and could not completely overcome what is ultimately a very depressing and ugly story of hatred and violence.

Two separate stories are shared in Honor. However, both stories intertwine together to make a powerful telling of women's role/place in India. Smita is an American born in India who ends up covering a story about Meeta. Meeta is Hindu (Indian) who married a Muslim man, setting in motion catastrophic events. It was a depressing read, but the story was good.

Umrigar's latest novel of India tackles a lot of big topics in a fairly short book: religious persecution, childhood trauma, poverty, government corruption, misogyny, violence and murder. The main character Smita, a journalist, returns to Mumbai, for the first time since leaving for America at the age of 14. Lots of past secrets are slowly revealed as Smita attempts to bring justice for a Hindu woman who was horribly burned during the "honor killing" of her Muslim husband. The story is fascinating, but there are quite a few two-dimensional characters and at times I felt the writing did not elicit the emotional response that the horrible events should have. Won't comment on the ending to avoid spoilers other than to say that the last minute airport drama felt completely unoriginal and utterly predictable.