A Breath of Fresh Air

‘A Breath of fresh air ‘is a compelling story that starts in the backdrop of the city of ‘Bhopal’ in India. The story revolves around an innocent and beautiful girl ‘Anjali’ who dreams of having a sanctified marriage, a loving husband, children and a life full of merriment.Young Anjali gets married to an army officer Prakash who enters her life only to cover the dishonor of his affair with another married woman.Anjali’s life is thrown upside down when she has to bear the brunt of a gas tragedy while being stranded in the railway station waiting for her adulterous husband. The tragedy takes a toll on her health and she realizes that life is precious and cannot spend the rest with Prakash.An awful marriage, a gas tragedy and a forbidden divorce transforms Anjali from a naive girl to a strong woman. With the help of her feminist friend Harjot, she completes her higher studies and gets employed as a school teacher. In her present life, she is settled with her second husband Sandeep, a university professor along with her ailing son Amar in the small city of Ooty.The author thoughtfully connects the characters of her past life to her present life in Ooty. The characters in the story are well built and take us through their emotions, perspectives and the circumstances that intentionally or unintentionally might have influenced or transformed Anjali!I appreciate how the protagonist and some of the related characters break the stereotypes and the conventional images that still prevail in the Indian society. Bringing alive the real life tragedies of the Union carbide gas leak in Bhopal and the aftereffects of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in the country was influential!The book is a good read and held my attention throughout. The ending of the story is inevitable and brought me to tears!SMITA

I am really in cloud nine after reading this novel. Malladi mam lucidly presented an ordinary woman's aspirations in a touching manner. It has really changed me personally by stressing the keywords of forgiveness, giving second chances and the extent is to be a strong woman at any circumstances. I loved the characters Anjali and Sandeep.

i really liked this book - easy writing and great character buildup.

While I liked this book a lot and read it quickly, the characters never did really grab me. I felt that they could have been developed further and that the story was not that engaging. It's a good read for an airplane or the beach but you do not find yourself immersed in the story. Compare this to A Space Between Us (look this one up if you haven't read it) - A Breath of Fresh Air is not nearly as compelling.

Author Amulya Malladi brings a heartwarming story to vivid life in "A Breath of Fresh Air." She also brings something of Indian culture that is still frowned upon to the forefront, and that is divorce. Main character, Anjali, divorces her husband - something almost unheard of in India, thereby putting her into a particular "class" of women in her culture. Her own parents hold it against her that she is divorced. A teacher, she eventually remarries and has a son, though the son has a life-threatening illness stemming from an unfortunate catastrophe which occurred while Anjali was still married to her first husband. Somehow she manages through life as her new husband is a wonderful, caring individual and they devote their lives to caring for their ill son.After several years, when Anjali runs into her ex-husband, her life goes into more turmoil. She begins reliving the days of her life with her first husband and the tragedies which led to their marriage's demise. Anger fuels toward him for the sickness her son has, something the man learns and suffers guilt over, too. This book focuses primarily on Anjali's struggle to reconcile with the roles she carries as wife and ex-wife as well as working mother and mother (another rarity in her culture). The author does a fantastic job with letting the reader see all the heartache and feelings going on with each character, something that elevates this book to one where the reader feels at one with the characters and situations.Another very interesting and cleverly done thing with this book is that every few chapters, the author presents the continuation of the story from the insight and words of the various characters in the book, so that the reader is able to actually see and feel what's going on within each character, and not just bases what they're thinking and feeling by what other characters say. I liked that very much. This brought deeper meaning to the story and a better understanding of each character.I highly recommend this book!