SBBC: One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakar

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (ISBN 978-1-4013-3009-5).

Book Genre: General Fiction

Summary: Late afternoon in a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair. When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There’s little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, “one amazing thing” from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. And as their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expressionitself.

Swap details: I've set the sign-up date for two weeks from now to give folks time to pick up a copy and read it a bit (if you wish) before you decide to join this swap, but you can start reading whenever you'd like. Once the sign-up date has closed, I will also create a discussion thread in the group forums, which anyone who is in the group will be able to add to. This will give everyone an additional opportunity to discuss the book (even while you are reading). You can either hand-write or type and send (via post) the answers to your questions. Please use your best judgment. If it elicits a yes or no, please answer it with at least one complete sentence. I would say most questions should be answered with a minimum of a few sentences. The purpose is to create a dialog, a discussion about the book - with your assigned partner, perhaps you will be in touch via e-mail, or private message or through the forum as part of a larger group, or you just want to see what someone else thinks about what we've read. If you only answer yes or no, it doesn't really leave room much room for a discussion.

Category 1 (answer all 6 of these questions for your partner)

1. Have you ever read this book before? Did this book fall in the usual genre of books you read?

2. As an overall experience, how did you feel about this book? Did you enjoy it, hate it, did it make you irritated, angry, sad, did you find it easy to read or did it take you a while to get into, was it entertaining, annoying or something else entirely?

3. Did you have a favorite part of the book? Describe what it was. If you didn't like the book, please tell more about why.

4. Would you recommend this book to others?

5. On a scale of 1 to 10 (one being low and 10 being high), how would you rate this book?

6. Does this book remind you of others you have read? if so, recommend a book that has some likeness in your opinion (even if the likeness is not apparent). Please include the title, and author and a brief description about the book, or why it reminded you of this one.

Category 2 Please pick 6 of the following questions (below) to answer with the above questions. These questions are taken directly from the book’s reading group guide. Please be honest in your answer and use constructive criticism. You can choose to answer more questions below, but you must choose a minimum of 6. If there is something not asked in the questions that you'd like to share, please feel free to discuss that too.

1. If you were to tell the story of one amazing thing that had happened in your life, what would it be? Would it be a memory of a gift, an experience, a person that you met, or an event that you witnessed? What made it amazing, and how did it change your life?

2. Would the experience of reading One Amazing Thing have been different had the narrative been through the point of view of just one person, or if the story had been told by an outside figured removed from the events in the book?

3. If you were trapped in a similar dangerous situation as the characters in One Amazing Thing, how do you think you’d react? Was there an action or behavior by a character that resonated with you?

4. Out of the nine people in the visa office, did you identify with any in particular? Which one(s) and why?

5. Why was each character’s “one amazing thing” remarkable?

6. This book begins and ends with Uma Sinha, the graduate student. Why did the author choose Uma’s story to “bookend” the novel in this way? What about Uma set her apart from the members of the group, in your mind?

7. Which character’s story did you find the most unexpected? Conversely, were you able to predict what was to happen in any of the stories?

8. Refresh your memory with the stories of the female characters in the book. Did these stories have anything in common?

9. “Apologize to a woman and she would gain the upper hand. Mangalam knew better than to let that happen” (p55). What did you first think of Mr. Mangalam, and did this change after you learned his story?

10. Discuss Mr. and Mrs. Pritchett. Were you surprised, as their stories unfolded, to discover their reasons for going to India?

11. Almost all of the characters experience or perpetuate some kind of cultural misunderstanding. What did you learn about some of the cultures and religions explored in this book?

12. What do you think of the book’s ending? What do you think the group’s fate was? Why did Uma’s story end where it did?