(Review) Sisters of the Sari

Title: Sister of the Sari
Author: Brenda L. Baker
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 352
Pub Date: June 2011

Source: I received a finished copy of the book from Penguin USA for my honest and sincere review.

About the Book:
A debut novel about an American woman and an Indian woman who are about to dramatically change each other’s lives-along with the lives of those around them.

While vacationing in India, Kiria Langdon, the opinionated and driven CEO of a major company, meets Santoshi, a former slave who now works as a cleaning lady and lives in a shelter for homeless women in Chennai. Appalled by the conditions in the shelter, Kiria becomes obsessed with the idea of building decent housing for poor working women in India. Santoshi reluctantly agrees to help, even though she thinks Kiria’s ideas are too crazy to succeed.

Embarking on a rich journey of personal discovery, both women will learn invaluable lessons about themselves as they forge a powerful bond of sisterhood across the barriers of language and culture-a bond that makes anything possible.

I was instantly drawn to the cover when I got pitched this book. I love the pink and the bangles. The premis of the story also intrigued me so I accepted the request to review the book and knowing that Brenda lives in Canada now always was a huge plus for me.

I managed to read the book pretty quickly. I really wanted to love this book but I just couldn’t and this will be surprising to my readers because I always seem to enjoy or love the books that I read here so this is rare for me.

Kiria (the main character) is a successful American woman who is the CEO of NOVIO, her own company. Kiria has no ties so nothing holds her back so she does what she wants even taking a trip to India.

During a trip to India she meets Santoshi by a chance encounter. Kiria is drawn to this woman and is determined to find out more about her and she almost stops at nothing to find out what she can. She finds out that alot of the women live in a shelter system instead of living on the streets. Although some will turn to the streets to live because they have no other option.

There is something about Santoshi that draws Kiria to her and she wants Santoshi to become better and more independent for herself. With her sight set on helping out Santoshi, Kiria decides that the other women need that same chance so she decides to open her own shelter that would allow these women to become dependant individuals.

Kiria’s friends are sure that this venture will fail but she is out to prove them wrong. Things come to a head when Santoshi informs Kiria that she will not live with anyone below here and that many of the women will feel the same way. This hits Kiria the wrong way and she is not going to turn anyone away that can use her help. Will she be able to help these women out or will she get burned in the process?

I have to admit that there was alot happening in this book with numerous characters being introduced with there own story lines and at times I was a little unsure how they would fit in. Perhaps this was one of the reasons I didn’t really enjoy the book.

I feel bad that I didn’t enjoy the book more because I know tons of people who loved the book from reading their reviews.