Association of Small Bombs

1.5 stars. I read this because it was a National Book Award finalist, and I'm not sure why. It takes a single, key event (a terrorist's bomb that explodes at a market in India) and follows its emotional and practical repercussions out over the lifetimes of multiple characters whose points of view alternate. This premise, while not particularly original, can often be interesting, but in this case I didn't care about any of the characters, found the prose to be clunky and long-winded, and ended up skimming through many narrative passages that went nowhere. Not one I would recommend.