The Right Sort of Girl: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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What she doesn't bargain for is Sid, her guide (and unwilling driver) being annoyingly handsome, with a knack for asking Baby the sort of questions that force her to look at what she really wants out of life. When Maharaja Duleep Singh died, the British kind of saw their opportunity to take over and annex this great state of Punjab.

Her grandfather’s story is heartbreaking, and I appreciate that both sides of his person are shown, the before and the after, illustrating the effects of his experience. On the scale that is used in Indian culture to compare individuals and where they should be in life, Baby is very behind. 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.

Discovering a cache of letters held by her grandma Baby decides that she needs to escape to 'find herself' and so visits her homeland of India. I loved bringing Baby to life and creating the sort of character I’ve always looked for in books but never found.

Baby is in her mid 30s and living a seemingly enviable life as a career woman in Manchester - though her lack of a husband is a worry to her an Indian family with very different expectations. She understands the trauma her parents went through and forgives but doesn’t forget the trauma this visited onto her as she grew up (in this, she reminds me of Pete Paphides in his recent memoir, reviewed here on Shiny, Broken Greek).However with the help of her cousin and Sid, she soon begins to feel more ‘at home’ in India: she opens up to the place and realises how much of her true self she has been keeping hidden. She's going to go to India, find out why her family left, find out more about the mysterious woman and find out more about herself. 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. Sid is keen to share his knowledge about Indian history with Baby, sometimes mocking her (unnecessarily I felt) for not knowing her own history.

Anita Rani said: ‘Baby is a woman so unsettled she decides to step into the unknown, driven by her desire to know more about a family secret and in the process, ends up discovering more about who she is. Through Anita’s book choices we celebrate works by Anita Anand, Mona Arshi, Salena Godden, Caitlin Moran and Nikki May. Beautiful illustrations with surprising hidden designs are complemented by alliterative language and buoyant rhyming, making this a treat of a read for young children.When she locates a bunch of letters addressed to her Grandad but not from his wife, her Dadima, she makes the decision that she needs to visit India to discover more of her ancestry. I also know that if you’ve worked hard enough to get into a place where no one looks like you, you’ve really kicked the door in to get there. When she finds some love letters between her grandfather and someone who is very clearly not her grandmother, Baby realises that she needs to know more.

And there’s a great moment a fairly long way in where she interrogates her reasons for not speaking out about racism in her industry and claiming her space, and decides to do both in the future, which is very empowering and inspirational. Baby's journey to India was brilliant and having been to India myself Baby describes it perfectly as a complete and utter sensory overload because that it what it is.This is no shiny, sparkly story: as she says in the quote at the top, Rani has not been rescued by anyone but has got where she is with grit and determination. Anita Rani is to be applauded for combining some really serious issues, which feel very much from the heart, with some fabulous characterisation and a strong sense of place which, combined with the humour that runs throughout make for an entertaining read.