Fiction Pick of the Week: Miss New India

Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee 2011

If you enjoy chick lit with an international flair you won’t be disappointed with Mukherjee’s Miss New India.  Anjali (Angie) Bose, a lovely green-eyed beauty, has just graduated from an English-language college in her small Indian town (Gauripur). A disastrous engagement encounter forces Angie to flee from her backwater village and head out to a bustling Call Centre city (Bangalore). Her parents and sister have disowned her but thanks to the generosity of her English teacher, Peter Champion, she has some cash and contacts set up for lodgings and a job.  Angie’s transformation from naïve village beauty to sophisticated city diva exposes her to a variety of people who betray her or are her benefactors. An interesting exposé on the changing social fabric of India’s booming cities.