Amnesty Canada chose this book for their August 2017 read. When I saw that and realized that it was one of the books on the CBC list of Novels that Make You Proud to be Canadian I knew I had to read it. Excellent novel (although I suspect there is a lot of autobiographical detail) that is set in Sri Lanka during the time of racial tension between the minority Tamils and the majority Sinhalese. I remember the reports about the Tamil Tigers fighting for an independent state in the 1980s but this book gives a more personal face to that racial tension.

There are six connected short stories in this book but to me it read like a cohesive novel. In the first story Anjie is seven years old, the middle child of well-off Tamil parents. Once a month all the cousins gather at their grandparents' house for a day of freedom from their parents. Anjie's favourite activity is playing bride-bride with the girl cousins with him being the bride. He loves dressing up and putting on makeup and parading around with the others in attendance. When Anjie's father discovers this is how his son spends the day he is furious and accuses him of being a 'funny boy'. Anjie doesn't know what he means but as he gets older he develops an interest in one boy after another. All the while he is growing up there are hints of growing violence against Tamils. One family friend is killed while covering the riots in Jaffna. His aunt is beaten up because she is Tamil. The hotel co-owned by his father has racial taunts painted on it. Then the violence comes to Colombo and even Anjie's father cannot ignore the threats. Their house is burned, they have to hide with friends and the grandparents are burned to death in their car. The family will move to Canada as refugees and live with an uncle.

Anjie develops throughout the book from a rather spoiled little boy to someone wise beyond his years. His world is turned upside down just as he is struggling to define his sexuality. ( )

I enjoyed this story of Arjie, a gay boy coming of age in Sri Lanka as civil war breaks out. The story, though,is somewhat disjointed and reads more like a series of linked stories rather than a novel. But still very enjoyable and Arjie's character is well done. ( )

Beautiful, moving story of a boy in Sri Lanka, having to cope with his "otherness" and the growing tensions between Tamil and Singhalese people. Very clearly written, attention to detail. A classic! ( )

In a sentence, this is the story of a young boy growing up in Sri Lanka during the civil war and slowly realizing that he's gay. But it in the bigger picture, it's about anyone who is different and growing up in any traditional culture and family, and the confrontation with injustice. Beautifully and sensitively written. Although the author doesn't cover the Edenic qualities of Sri Lanka that I so love in novels by Michael Ondaatje and Roma Tearne, I still loved this book. Highly recommended for readers who appreciate quality fiction. ( )

Set in Sri Lanka, this is a series of events in a young boy's life, looking at politics, race relations and sexuality. At the start of the book, Arjie is very young, so is often overlooked by those around him, so he makes a great observer, though we as the reader often can connect the dots quicker than him as a narrator.
Through Arjie and his extended family, we get a real insider's view on life in Colombo in the late 70s and early 80s, told in hindsight, but from what he saw: Radha Aunty falling in love with a Sinhalese man, the return from Australia of a journalist Daryl Uncle (his Amma's former boyfriend), the arrival of Jeganm the son of his father's childhood friend.
However, we cannot forget Arjie and this important stage in his life, from child to adholescent. In the first chapter, we see a young boy preferring to play with the girls rather than the boys, being called "funny" by his family, as they see his sexuality before he understands it. Through the book, we see him struggling to understand his sexuality, as well as his ethnicity as a Sinhalese-speaking Tamil and his position in the family.
For me, this was a really good book to get a look at Sri Lanka, we all see the news with reports of the Tamil Tigers, bombs in Colombo, but this book helped me understand the situation a bit more and inspired me to find out more. ( )