Book Review -- “Eating Wasps” by Anita Nair

Eating Wasps by Anita Nair
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a massively intense read. I had to put it away at around 39 pages because it was so particularly disturbing that it gnawed out my core with pain. But I picked it back up once my nerves were calmer and I finished it one go.
For lovers of Anita Nair books, this one would remind us of what drew us to her in the first place. A writer and zoologist whose life shatters up, an elderly woman in her twilight years having had the love of her life torn away from her just when she thought she was fated for some happiness, a morally questionable but characteristically gritty and strong middle-ager, a badminton player at the brink of glory deciding to literally walk away from it all, a girl running away from social media shame that feeds on her moment of callousness, and the goriest part of the book for me, a bewildered child being subjected to harassment, all find themselves intrinsically connected by “Nile on the Nila”, the resort that has seen the best and worst of people. I was delighted to find some familiar characters from “Mistress” by Nair.
This draws some semblance to “Ladies Coupe”, an earlier work of hers with intertwining stories of women thrown together by life, but “Eating Wasps” isn’t banal or repetitive. Concepts of morality, evil, and hazed borders of goodness are all dealt with in Nair’s usual flair.
Not an easy read, but something that today’s world needs nonetheless.

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