Read this! "The bombing, for which Mr. and Mrs. Khurana were not present, was a flat percussive event that began under the bonnet of a parked white Maruti 800, though of course that detail, that detail about the car, could only be confirmed later. A good bombing begins everywhere at once." So begins Karan Majajan's stunning and unforgettable novel about the detonation of a small bomb in an open market in Delhi in the mid 1990s that immediately kills two young brothers and severely injures their friend. As the title suggests, the novel traces the trajectory of trauma caused by this initial explosion that envelops the grieving parents, the bomb's young survivor, the bomb maker himself, and a young philosopher whose radicalization begins the trauma anew. No one character is presented as the villain here as the antagonist is the religious conflict in all its gory complexity. Majajan's prose is flawless (as evidenced by that opening paragraph) and the story is both pointed and expansive, troubling and yet somehow, inevitable. First 5 star read of the year! Finalist for the National Book Award. #bookworm #january2017reads #playingcatchup #laaaaaatergram #goodreadschallenge2017 #india #nationalbookawardfinalist #fivestars