Missy

An enjoyable read! I particularly liked the strong female characters and family relationships. The plot was a little predictable, but otherwise it was well written and engaging. Worth reading if you like family dramas spanning across different generations and countries.

Excellent read, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this title in exchange for my feedback.

Savi’s beginnings were inauspicious. Her upturn started in the house of the nuns, where she was schooled and learned that keeping her head down was the way to get ahead. Seconded for service to a rich household, put in charge of the youngest son in the house her life seemed ordained for service.

When an attraction to a budding artist got in the way, along with an attempted rape, and deaths, the couple fled first to the coast, then on a steamer to Yemen where Missy and Ananda now with new identities, skipped to America. Fast forward many years, two brilliant children, a flourishing business, Missy has never got over the fact that she is an illegal immigrant in America.

When Arun comes into Shilpa’s life, Missy feels that her world is tilting. Only when Shilpa goes to India to meet the family, does the karmic forces come full circle to reveal that this is the family where Missy and now her ex husband caused mayhem and unimaginable grief when they lost their eldest son in that initial brutal assault. The explanations decades later being accepted by the family of the actual stories of the deaths was the beginning of peace for Missy.

Very descriptive of the domestic situation in the house in South India as well as the situation in America, it gave a glimpse of how hard it is for some to adapt to a different way of life, and also how easy it is for second generation immigrant children to live in the manner born in the new country. The feudal system of servitude which prevailed in rich houses in Asia may exist still on a reduced level though dictatorial attitudes may be absent today.
Engrossing read.

This book is great for people who love following generations of a family. It felt easy to read, albeit a bit predictable at times, but I did enjoy it.

Missy’s life is divided into two unequal pieces. There is her youth in India and there is her much longer adulthood in the United States. The boundary between the two is a horrific crime and misunderstanding that sends Missy across the ocean. Raghav Rao’s entertaining and heartfelt novel, Missy, shows us both pieces of her life—the long shadow of past secrets and Missy’s determination to reinvent herself. Rao’s characters are lively, often funny, and incredibly headstrong.

Once upon a time in Tamil Nadu, a young girl named Savi fled from a famine with her mother. Only Savi survived the long march. Nuns took her in, taught her English, and attempted to get her to convert to Catholicism. When she reaches her teens, the nuns find a position for her as a governess and maid in the home of a wealthy guru. Compared to what Savi has known, this is a huge step up in the world. Unfortunately, it brings her into contact with the utterly repellant man who acts as the Nandiyar family’s chauffeur.

After Rao reveals the crime that turned Savi into a refugee, the novel jumps ahead several decades and to another continent. Savi is now Missy Royce, the founder and owner of the Dancing Shiva Driving School. She lives with her two daughters in a cozy home in Chicago. All would be right with her world if it wasn’t for two things: she is an undocumented immigrant and she doesn’t want to risk anyone finding out what happened to her in India. When a young Indian doctor turns up at Dancing Shiva, Missy’s formidable barrier between past and present starts to crumble. It’s finally time for Missy to open up about what she’s been hiding all these years.

I realize that the above summary makes Missy sound like a heavy book. There are heavy moments, but I was charmed by the lightness of this book. Missy and her daughters, Shilpa and Mansi, are delightful characters. As much as they bicker and push each other’s buttons, their love for each other is evident in the way Missy cooks for her daughters, Mansi’s pushes to be better people, and Shilpa’s efforts to keep things legal. The scenes showing Missy and her family’s home life feel like being wrapped up in a warm blanket and served something hot and delicious.

The conclusion of the book—which brings closure to many plot threads while also leaving a few others open—felt not so much like a climax as it did like bidding farewell to characters whose lives are going to carry on past the last page. Some readers may not like the ambiguity but I was very satisfied by the ending of Missy. Even though I don’t know what will happen to some of the characters, I like the idea that they’re out there in Chicago and Tamil Nadu, meddling in each other’s lives and welcoming new family and friends into the fold.

Miss Missy is a terrifically entertaining book.
A servant girl in a wealthy Indian household falls in love, and fights off an evil man. The pampered scion of the family is accidentally killed. To avoid being blamed, the girl and her lover flee the scene, and eventually end up in America to make a new life.
Many years later, Missy has clawed together a life for her and her daughters. The past arrives to catch up with her.
What makes me feel uncomfortable reading books set in India is the obvious racism inherent in the caste structure, and the fact that everyone seems to have servants and be incredibly spoiled.