The Spectacular Miss by Sonia Bahl [Paperback]

I learned that I am, despite my early years spent as a swaggering boy, at heart just a middle-class, hard-working, risk-averse, un-creative, strait-laced, routine-obsessed conformist. In case I forgot to mention it, I’m also prudish to the point of being puritanical. But at eight, Nira had only one over-powering wish—to pee standing up like a boy. In fact, to be a boy. Join Nira as she steps into her brother’s clothes and becomes the self-appointed Al Caponesque gang leader of the neighbourhood boys. Her oddball yet madly loving family shapes her personality and a poignant relationship with her brother’s best friend shapes her life. She uses uninhibited candour to detail her coming-of-age journey from Calcutta to London, from tomboy to reluctant woman-in-progress always trying to fit in, but always failing. She’s a laugh a minute and yet she breaks your heart with her subconscious, percussive yearning for the one person who is always too old, too far, too married to be hers.