A clash of two cultures lies at the heart of a daughter’s discovery of a life her mother left to truly be herself. It takes the reader of the heat of India as it moves to modernize and how it affects Rosarita. A mother tortured by convention , but freed by a moment of promise in a world so far from the confines of her daily life. Bonita the daughter studying in a foreign country but destined to discovery a mother freed from one life and discovered in another. Happy reading

This book definitely doesn't work as a novella. It is short but also shallow. The premise, though interesting, fails to deliver the reader: a young Indian woman (Bonita) is studying languages in Mexico. While sitting on a bench in a park she is approached by a stranger who recognizes her as the daugter of a woman named Rosarita, a woman she knew many years ago in Mexico and, she affirms, was there studying Art and painting with The Maestro. Bonita, at the begining, is sure that the starnger is taking her for somone else: as far as she is concerned, her mom wasn not and artist and never been to Mexico. But the seed of the doubt is planted, so while she reminisces, she starts to consider that is possible that her mother kept this part of her life a secret from her family. Interesting. What are the chances! But, Ok, this probably has an explanation. One of the problems of the book is that the "spanish" used in it is HORRIBLE. As a Spanish speaker I could not get over some obvious mistakes that I really don't understand how they even made it to the proof. There are words that don't exist in the spanish language. I'm sorry but I find that's not excusable.

Thank you to Net Galley and Scribner for providing this eARC of Rosarita by Anita Desai in exchange for my honest review.

Anita Desai’s latest novel is a beautifully crafted work, written in a lyrical and poetic style that brings every scene to life. The vivid descriptions of Mexico and it's people are both colorful and evocative. The story unfolds with a misty veil of memories, while the daughter Bonita navigates her grief after the loss of her mother.
While I appreciated the beauty of the writing, I found that the characters lacked the depth I was hoping for. The relationships and personalities didn’t feel fully fleshed out, leaving me with a sense that the story remained somewhat loose and thready. The narrative didn’t quite come together for me in the end.

Additionally, while the novel hints at connections between the Partition of India and the Mexican Revolution, particularly involving the railway, I struggled to fully grasp the significance of these historical parallels. This left me feeling a bit disconnected from one of the central themes of the book.

Overall, though there is much to admire in Desai’s graceful prose, I was left wanting more cohesion and clarity in the story's development.

This is a novella, and rather an allusive one. It seems to spring from a single idea but doesn’t really follow through. All the questions about the central character’s mother remain unanswered and are suddenly shelved. There is little backstory, just a lot of immediacy which is vibrant and colorful but not wholly satisfying. Yes, Destini’s a fine writer and observer, but this work is limited.

Desai's novella is a quick, yet puzzling read where readers wonder about the main characters, a young woman, Bonita, from India studying abroad in San Miguel, Mexico, who meets a woman who claims to have met her mother decades earlier, in San Miguel. Bonita has never heard of her mother visiting San Miguel, yet, the woman persuades her that he mother came and hung out with artists, revolutionaries, painting images of Partition, trains, and violence. The novel is magical and mystical, yet, leaving readers to ponder what's real and unreal, the way Bonita questions her experiences with this woman. Perhaps, if we knew more about the mother and daughter, more would have been more clear, more relevant.