The Right Sort of Girl: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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The captivating story – which I read in just one day – encourages us to recognise and respect our family history.

Baby also realises how lacking the British school history curriculum is given the diversity of our country and the fact that for 300 years, Britain’s main focus was India and the Empire, with Britain’s historical wealth, development and achievements made on the back of India, yet all that is taught in British schools are ‘two world wars and how great the Victorians were’. Their long car journey is stilted at first but they get used to one another, even surviving a night at a farm in the middle of the countryside when Sid’s car breaks down. So much of the book was devoted to highlighting the historic misogyny in the culture and traditions, so her reliance on this random man felt rather ironic. Baby and her family were very much a traditional Indian family at heart, although Baby didn't seem to know much about her heritage, the British Rule of India and Partition.She finds some old love letters to her grandfather from his first wife, who Baby had never heard about, and discovers that her grandfather had had a family before he’d left India. Still mourning the loss of her father, Baby just wants a quiet birthday, but her mother and Dadima have other ideas. The story of a girl who never fit in and the woman she became - an incredible first memoir from Anita Rani.

In looking for her family's secrets, she learns about Partition, the atrocities that took place and how families including her own, were torn apart. She wonders if she has been the British Experiment and if it is possible to be fully British without losing Indian values and culture, but she also realises that she is completely connected to and a product of her, and India’s, past.But she is still getting over the loss of her beloved father - and when she discovers letters belonging to her grandfather that suggest there is family history that has never been discussed, she decides it is time to visit India and learn more about her family. She's heads off to India, to find out why her family left, and find out more about the mysterious woman. When Baby finds some love letters between her grandfather and a woman she knows nothing about and is clearly not her Dadima. The one thing that I thought was brilliant and which I keep coming back to, is the fact that with the exception of Sid (and even he's just a foil for Baby), men play only a cursory part in this story.

This generation of women, the first who landed in Britain, had to straddle so many worlds and leave their own behind.

She feels marked out as ‘different’ because she is an Indian living abroad, whilst discovering that she is equally guilty of having incorrect regressive assumptions about modern day India, as well as ignorance of its past. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Fizzing with energy, hilarity and charm, The Right Sort of Girl is a coming-of-age story of identity.