well written with a gripping storyline told from 4 narratives and well developed characters - I mean seriously well developed. I couldn't put it down.

Intersections
A Novel
by Poornima, MancoIt
I very much enjoyed Intersection. . The friends come to India and I learned much by reading was written in 4 POV. and from Indis.

The prologue for this novel sucked me right in and got me through the slower set-up introductory section of the novel to get to the meat of the story. Four very different school girls are friends until a shocking incident fractures their friendship and they go their separate ways. Twenty years later they meet up again in connection with a farewell for their school principal. The author really develops each character as a distinct person, both as teenagers and adults, and readers will find things to relate to with each character. Interesting and thought-provoking.

This book is definitely a slow burn, and I enjoyed it. I liked the shifting POVs between the characters. Thanks for letting me check it out!

I read a book of short stories by the author and was intrigued by her style of narration. When I saw a full novel come up on NetGalley, I had to try it out.
It is not often that I read a book based in India by an Indian-born author. When I do, I am extremely picky when it comes to things I feel discordant. This book had me thinking about the people and the plot line every day in the duration it took me to finish it and during the time I was not reading it.
This is a story of four women. The beginning scene is quite dramatic and sets up the finale, but it immediately jumps back in time to Delhi when our protagonists are still young children.
Our central character is Pari. She is the original inhabitant of the town and the school where everything is set to occur. She has a loving family (even if her brother loves to tease her mercilessly), but she is very conscious of her teeth and is teased brutally in school. Things are set to change when she makes a new friend who will pivot the rest of the narrative.
Samira is an interesting child. It's even better when the voice shifts to give us her side of events. This is the best mechanic which elevates an otherwise ordinary drama of friends. We see all the events through the eyes of one girl, and then suddenly, when time skips ahead a little, another picks up the plot, and we get to see a whole other side of what happened and how things are now. Samira, as the blurb suggests, is waiting for her mother to be closer to her. Samira befriends Pari, and then Roma comes into the picture. Now Roma's voice stands apart from the others mostly because of the clarity in her actions. She knows what she is doing at all times. Madhu is juggling a lot of balls, but her story is not one to be ignored. Although she is sure of the world around her and herself, she is an observer and does not meddle like Roma.
Things fracture at the tail end of their teenage years after almost a decade of following this unlikely band of four. It is then that we move far ahead in time to the present and find out where everyone is and how their lives have turned out.
The events that transpire felt true to the characters that the author introduced to us and built up over the years. It is essentially a very filmy story, but that does not make it any less potent. The dynamics between everybody and the internal struggles that we see make this an ideal plot to discuss and dissect.
My takeaway from this was that the author's writing appeals to me, and I should probably try more of her works. I would recommend this to people who like stories like these and also those who would like to see a more realistic Indian-based drama.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers. My review is entirely based on my own reading experience.