One Amazing Thing in Bound Together

Mar 02, 2014 Connie Cox rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-club-reads, 2014, new-authors-2014, best-of-2014-5-stars

Thanks to my book club for introducing this author to me. She is apparently known for her short stories, and this novel reads like a collection, and it is. The characters trapped together after an earthquake share their stories, share the one amazing thing in their lives.

The surprise to me is that for the most part the stories were not uplifting, nor amazing. They were stories of what was important to the storyteller, they were stories that were spoken aloud for the benefit of the teller, not ...more

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Nov 30, 2014 ☮Karen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2015

Nine very diverse people, trapped in an office following an earthquake, decide to pass the time by recounting a special time in their lives. The stories are told one by one, not much is memorable about most of them, not much is amazing really, just the fact that each storyteller took away something of value from those times. Just everyday life. Interesting how the stories seemed to help in their collective struggle to get free from the collapsed building.
I expected to be more amazed. I do like ...more

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Dec 22, 2015 Martha☀ rated it liked it

Shelves: own

When a significant earthquake hits California, nine people are trapped in the India consulate office. Hours go by; hunger sets in; tempers and anxieties are high; food is pooled; aftershocks occur. As each of them awaits the worst, Uma suggests that they each tell a story of One Amazing Thing that each has witnessed in his/her life. This minor distraction helps to pass the time and forms bonds between these unlikely characters. As each person tells their story, Divakaruni succeeds in capturing a ...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Deb rated it really liked it

Everybody has a story, or maybe even one amazing thing that's happened to them. Amazing is not always a positive word, but it describes something that might have changed a life, or the course of one's story.

Some of the stories are heartbreaking, all of them paint a picture of the characters and why they may be who they have become. I think the author intentionally tells some of the stories so you are left wanting more. You have so many questions, want to know the outcome, how the central person ...more

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Jan 11, 2010 Athira (Reading on a Rainy Day) rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, 2010, format-print, f-general, source-library

In an unnamed American city, seven customers and two officials remained in the visa office of an Indian consulate, during the late afternoon, each lost in his or her own thoughts, when an earthquake struck. Amidst the chaos that follows, only one person, Cameron, an African-American ex-soldier retains his senses. He tries to calm the people down, and keep them away from the collapsed section of the office. Soon after, everyone's focus turns to survival. They try to scrape together as much food a In an unnamed American city, seven customers and two officials remained in the visa office of an Indian consulate, during the late afternoon, each lost in his or her own thoughts, when an earthquake struck. Amidst the chaos that follows, only one person, Cameron, an African-American ex-soldier retains his senses. He tries to calm the people down, and keep them away from the collapsed section of the office. Soon after, everyone's focus turns to survival. They try to scrape together as much food as possible, they collect water in bowls from the visa officer Mangalam's bathroom, they distrust each other. Slowly, the office begins to flood.

When finally the stress begins to get to them and they wait achingly for help to come, Uma, a young graduate student, brings every one together and tells them to each tell one story, one amazing thing, that happened to them. And as they kept waiting for rescue, they each began to tell a tale of something that defined the person they have become.

One Amazing Thing is a wonderful read, mainly for the many stories that weave together to make a coherent unit. The first one-third of the book shows each character in a certain firmly set Plaster-of-Paris role. They were either magnanimous or selfish; kind or rude; imposing or withdrawn. Already I liked or hated certain characters. I didn't care for some, and a few left me in an ambiguous state.

Chitra wrote these characters really well, but some of the characters felt too stereotyped for me. For instance, there is the Indian American girl, Uma, whose boyfriend is non-Indian. Her parents do not exactly support this decision of hers and are hoping to get her to meet some Indian guys during her vacation. That may be a common dilemma among Indian Americans, but I didn't want to read about yet another Indian-American girl rebelling against her parents and having immigrant issues within her family. Tariq, a Muslim, is shown to be highly rebellious and violent, yet another common stereotype among Muslims who have long suffered since 9/11 for no fault of theirs. Through their stories, I was able to appreciate them better, but I found their character descriptions slightly weak, especially Tariq's because of his easy typecasting into the angry young Muslim.

The stories themselves were very captivating. Some of them were really powerful and gave a nice insight in to the characters and their various thoughts that we have been reading for most of the book. Some, like Uma's, didn't exactly connect well with their present circumstances. I felt her story to be somewhat of an aberrant, after being inside her head for too long. All the stories weren't exactly happily-ever-afters. They do have character redemption, but most felt strangely incomplete. Although they were narrating one significant thing that happened to them, I had a lot of questions once they were done with the story.

I found the narration of the stories very discordant. Chitra tries to tell each story uniquely, but in the process does not give each narrator his or her own unique voice, which is what would be ideal in a multi-cultural setting as this. Instead, she uses different narrating styles. One person's story is told entirely in the present-tense format, which happens to be the one story-telling style I like the least. After a while, the different styles felt highly jarring.

As I turned the last page, I felt highly unsatisfied to the level that I wanted to scream. I definitely didn't appreciate the way it ended, since it left me to fill in the gaps. I find this mode of fiction becoming a lot popular nowadays - an ambiguous ending that leaves the viewer/reader to form his or her own interpretations. That works well in highly imaginative shows like LOST, and supernatural or paranormal books, where one's own beliefs can play a role in how one reads the story. But where things are stated as they are, as in One Amazing Thing, I would have appreciated a couple more pages to explain what was left out. A week after reading this book, I don't feel too bothered now - probably because I've come to realize that what-was-left-out was not consequential to the story as a whole, since the events in the basement would have no bearings on the two possible endings. I also concocted my own follow-up for the same, so my anxious mind rests easy now. ...more

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Jul 08, 2010 Bucket rated it liked it

Shelves: culture, literary, race, life-and-death, reviewed, tragedy, diversity

All nine stories told by the characters are extremely well done! I was easily immersed in each tale and disappointed to be dragged back to the frame story of the earthquake. I think that Divakaruni excels in the small scale of the short story/personal narrative. However, the frame story was less well-written. Divakaruni used devices like lists of rhetorical questions to show a character's confusion. (Would she do this? Would she do that? Or would any of it matter?) She also felt the need to over ...more

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Feb 26, 2014 ♥ Sandi ❣ rated it liked it · review of another edition

I am still thinking about this one...I really enjoyed her writing style and the premise of the story gave to a good plot. I enjoyed the characters and the way that they interacted. However...I wanted more! I felt that this authors writing ability could have taken this book to a much higher level. I am not sure if I felt there was something lacking in the story, or if I just wanted more out of the author.

This novel was about a group of strangers, put in a very serious and precarious position, an ...more

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Sep 10, 2012 Alena rated it liked it

Shelves: book-club

Easy, interesting read -- almost a short story format as several people share one amzing story from their lives while trapped by an earthquake. It did make me wonder what story I would tell.

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