I have read a few reviews of The Taste of Ginger, and they vary wildly in their response to the book. I am on the positive side of the question, giving this debut novel by Mansi Shah 5 stars.
What I most appreciated about this book was following Preeti on her journey to understand more about herself and where she came from so that she can figure out who she wants to be. She is a first-generation immigrant to America from India, having been brought over by her parents as a child.
When the story begins, she is a thirty-year old lawyer just out of a failed relationship with a white American man. She has a troubled relationship with her parents, especially her mother, but then a family emergency calls her to India and forces her to examine her beliefs and feelings about her family and the different cultures they have lived in.
As she sits on the plane taking her to India and thinks back over her life in America, she realizes, “Fitting in meant letting go of who I was and becoming someone new.” I can relate to that so much as an autistic woman. I am always watching the behaviors and customs of those around me so that I can attempt to fit into different environments.
About halfway through, after Preeti learns something she didn’t know about her mother, we hear the sentence that contains the title of the book. Her auntie tells her, “A monkey does not know the taste of ginger,” which is explained to mean, “you cannot appreciate that which you do not know.” She goes on to say, “One thing is certain; you don’t understand her life, and she doesn’t understand yours. Until you both start trying the ginger, you never will.”
I won’t say more about what happens other than to say this a turning point for Preeti. I can attest that, in my own life, gaining an understanding of my mother made a big difference in my relationship with her and in how I felt about myself as a person.
As you can tell, this was a very personal book for me. I focused here on Preeti’s relationship with her mother, but there are several other significant topics covered in this book, and I really enjoyed many of the characters as well as the detailed descriptions of places and events. Highly recommend!
In So Many Words 