Ugly Duckling by Amita Mukerjee

Ugly Duckling

Amita Mukerjee

Witty, acerbic, straight talking – and set in Paris. Mia, a young translator, is short on confidence and experience. For a perceptive girl, she has no idea how people around her really view her. This, coupled with her journey of self-discovery (fraught with stumbling blocks thanks to so-called friends), provides the main focus and pull of this book. Her down-to-earth, coarse humour could have come straight from my mouth! I loved it.

Extract
She looked at us. Then he put his hand into her sweater, first caressing her back then her breasts. She delicately pulled away.
She gives and she gives and she gives, he said. And she asks for nothing in return . . .
And he smiled almost tearily. Graziella smiled magnanimously.
Well you give too, darling, she said smiling.
And then she threw him a lascivious glance and laughed her famous laugh. He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.
Fantastic, I thought. We're watching live gerontophiliac porn. Title : Idiot geriatric egotist goosed unhinged metisse interpreter.
I wondered where the evening could go from here. By now they were well into a deep soggy French kiss and were touching each other in strategic places. What was most disturbing was that every now and then Graziella looked at me and my husband and smiled.
Parallels
  • Dreams from the Endz by Faiza Guene
  • Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich