Categola

lovely(Rating: 5)
I really enjoyed this. How very useful it is to read about these things in other peoples' lives when more usually these things are unspoken about and hidden. I loved the casual style of writing, easy to read, self-deprecating and often laugh-out-loud funny. There is a review on here by a "poet" woman who gives it one star - what a load of rubbish, she has SO missed the point. I shall be giving this to people for their 2010 birthdays!

Enlightenment and understanding(Rating: 5)

I found this book utterly compelling. As a white middle class woman living in the Cotswolds I knew nothing about Asian family life and even less about the illness schizophrenia. Sathnam writes so beautifully, I simply couldn't put the book down and constantly thought about all the people in it. I also thought that chance, which straw we draw, plays such a big part in our lives. Sathnam's parents were uneducated and came to England speaking no english, he went to school here, was very clever and hard working, went to grammar school and ended up at Cambridge University. What would he be had they not come here - probably working on a farm in the Punjab.
It is, also, a funny book. I often laughed outloud. Please read this book, it heartbreaking,
entertaining, delightful and will be, for me, a book to re-read again and again.

A great read(Rating: 5)
Didn't really know what to expect when a friend recommended this book but was gripped from the first page and continued to be all the way through. Much to empathise with, both growing up in the '80s (albeit not in a Sikh family) and experiences of family with mental illness. Definitely not a misery memoir (which, like the author, I am not a fan of) - but laugh out loud funny at points. Brilliantly written and highly recommended.

Hilarious, heartbreaking, enlightening.(Rating: 5)
Having grown up near Wolverhampton and having had some good Sikh friends, The Boy with the Topknot took me on a journey through some very familiar places. At the same time it has made me realise that I have always seen these things through a rather narrow lense. I am certainly better informed for reading it.

Having said this, The Boy with the Topknot is far from being merely an encyclopaedia of information. It is a wonderfully engaging read that kept me reading after I should have gone to bed and kept me awake after I should have been asleep. I laughed out loud and I cried a little too. I felt slightly sad, but not at all disappointed, when I came to the end.

Truly excellent.

What's it like as a second generation immigrant?(Rating: 4)
At first sight this is a straightforward account of how a second generation Punjabi immigrant boy grew up in Wolverhampton but there is more to it. It describes how first generation Sikh immigrants find their environment frightening and avoid taking part in British life, retaining all their extended family contacts, language and beliefs and how the boy is influenced by his different local environment and school life. More importantly it is an account of living within a family dominated by schizophrenia without understanding (at first) what it is. Overall it sheds new light for us "natives" what it is like to come amongst us and on living with a mental illness in the family. Extremely well written and highly readable.