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Age of Vice
This is the age of vice, where money, pleasure, and power are everything, and the family ties that bind can also kill.
New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.
Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family — loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.
In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Neda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence and revenge, will these characters’ connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction?
Equal parts crime thriller and family saga, transporting readers from the dusty villages of Uttar Pradesh to the urban energy of New Delhi, Age of Vice is an intoxicating novel of gangsters and lovers, false friendships, forbidden romance, and the consequences of corruption. It is binge-worthy entertainment at its literary best.
New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.
Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family — loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.
In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Neda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence and revenge, will these characters’ connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction?
Equal parts crime thriller and family saga, transporting readers from the dusty villages of Uttar Pradesh to the urban energy of New Delhi, Age of Vice is an intoxicating novel of gangsters and lovers, false friendships, forbidden romance, and the consequences of corruption. It is binge-worthy entertainment at its literary best.
544 pages, Hardcover
First published January 3, 2023
About the author
Deepti Kapoor
6 books543 followersDeepti Kapoor was born in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, and grew up in Bombay, Bahrain and Dehradun. In 1997 she went to the University of Delhi to study journalism and later completed an MA in Social Psychology. She spent the next decade working for various publications, driving around the city, finding stories and learning its streets. She now lives in Lisbon, Portugal.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,381 reviews
December 1, 2022
Age of Vice is a sprawling epic that is utterly engrossing. The characters are richly drawn and Kapoor has an incredible grasp of the genre into which she is writing. The way she writes of privation and excess, of the absolute worst of human failings is very compelling. Excellent writing on a sentence level. I love the way the ending crescendoes to a cliffhanger that leaves you holding your breath, teetering on a narrative precipice.
There are some strange things going on with structure. The book starts with Ajay, a young boy sold by his mother and how he grows up and eventually ends up working for Sonny Wadia, the scion of Bunty Wadia, a wealthy businessman (and terrible father) from Uttar Pradesh. There is also Sonny's love interest, Neda and their lives collide in a car accident with grave consequences that alter their lives in profound and heartbreaking ways. The story shifts perspectives quite a lot, which is fine. But it does so inconsistently. Sometimes, there are headings like a screenplay but this is not a screenplay so why not just indicate the shifts in time and scene and so on with prose? The last fifth of the book really falls apart, The project is clear but the execution falters. Sonny's uncle Vicky is this shadowy figure and it's clear he has done some bad things and has some kind of messed up relationship to Sonny but the specifics, at least for ME, were just too vague. Like yes, mystery is great but WTF is going on there? Is it what I think it is?
But here's the thing... these issues don't really matter. I read the book enthusiastically. It's, from what I've found on the Internet, the first of a trilogy which helps the ending make slightly more sense and I will absolutely be reading the next two books. Great books are flawed and that's fine. This is a great book and I'm pretty sure you're going to love it. It's like Rohinton Mistry and Edith Wharton and Dennis Lehane made a baby.
There are some strange things going on with structure. The book starts with Ajay, a young boy sold by his mother and how he grows up and eventually ends up working for Sonny Wadia, the scion of Bunty Wadia, a wealthy businessman (and terrible father) from Uttar Pradesh. There is also Sonny's love interest, Neda and their lives collide in a car accident with grave consequences that alter their lives in profound and heartbreaking ways. The story shifts perspectives quite a lot, which is fine. But it does so inconsistently. Sometimes, there are headings like a screenplay but this is not a screenplay so why not just indicate the shifts in time and scene and so on with prose? The last fifth of the book really falls apart, The project is clear but the execution falters. Sonny's uncle Vicky is this shadowy figure and it's clear he has done some bad things and has some kind of messed up relationship to Sonny but the specifics, at least for ME, were just too vague. Like yes, mystery is great but WTF is going on there? Is it what I think it is?
But here's the thing... these issues don't really matter. I read the book enthusiastically. It's, from what I've found on the Internet, the first of a trilogy which helps the ending make slightly more sense and I will absolutely be reading the next two books. Great books are flawed and that's fine. This is a great book and I'm pretty sure you're going to love it. It's like Rohinton Mistry and Edith Wharton and Dennis Lehane made a baby.
September 20, 2022
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a long read at over 500 pages, but don’t let that put you off - I was engrossed right the way through!
Basically, the Wadia family rules Delhi - what they want, they get, and nothing happens without their consent - welcome to a world of gangsters, violent thugs, drug addicts, kidnappers and murderers!
Sunny Wadia, (son of mobster and businessman Bunty Wadia) is one of the main characters, but it’s Ajay (his gofer) who really takes centre stage for me. Such an interesting character - such an interesting life.
An epic read in every sense of the word, it’s lengthy, but completely compelling. Deepti Kapoor is a wonderful storyteller - I was transfixed! I deliberately haven’t gone into much detail because I think it deserves to be read. It’s a magnificent saga of greed and corruption that has ripple effects throughout communities. Read it, I doubt you’ll be disappointed!
*Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest unbiased review *
This is a long read at over 500 pages, but don’t let that put you off - I was engrossed right the way through!
Basically, the Wadia family rules Delhi - what they want, they get, and nothing happens without their consent - welcome to a world of gangsters, violent thugs, drug addicts, kidnappers and murderers!
Sunny Wadia, (son of mobster and businessman Bunty Wadia) is one of the main characters, but it’s Ajay (his gofer) who really takes centre stage for me. Such an interesting character - such an interesting life.
An epic read in every sense of the word, it’s lengthy, but completely compelling. Deepti Kapoor is a wonderful storyteller - I was transfixed! I deliberately haven’t gone into much detail because I think it deserves to be read. It’s a magnificent saga of greed and corruption that has ripple effects throughout communities. Read it, I doubt you’ll be disappointed!
*Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest unbiased review *
February 21, 2023
1 "gratuitous, voyeuristic, vile, soulless" star !!!
I am going to start by saying that I feel this is or will be both a critics' darling and crowd pleaser (and this greatly saddens me). I can see all the literati laughing and mocking my review because hey that's who we have become as a culture. I don't give a shit, however, and we must stand up for both general and literary integrity.
I do not think I could have felt more despairing and repelled about a novel. This is what we have become and this is what we imbibe and let the arrows fall where they may.
The prose is fair to middling but is also rather pretentious and overly assured. Lots of talent here should the author choose to utilize and work at it. This is so very longwinded and easily could have been cut down by half if not more. Where the fuck are the editors?
The story arc has some great excitement but is choppy and at times non-sensical and super sloppy.
The character sketches are caricatures despite spending a great deal of time on their backgrounds.
The men are one of three types:
-the most benign are the sycophantic assholes
-an assortment of both garden variety and malignant narcissists
-slippery and dangerous sociopathic demon lords
The behaviors are incongruent and psychologically unbelievable for the amount of sadism and violence inflicted. This makes no fuckin sense given their backgrounds. 80 percent of Indian men cannot all be one or more of the above. Just awful !
The lone female love interest in an entitled ever-suffering twat of a young woman. Again her background is no explanation for her less evil but equally repellent ways.
In a nutshell this book is both EMPTILY DISGUSTING and DISGUSTINGLY EMPTY.
I enjoyed visiting different parts of India but this book is ingrained in my psyche and will take a long time to recover from.
I will never read another book by this author. Adios !
I am going to start by saying that I feel this is or will be both a critics' darling and crowd pleaser (and this greatly saddens me). I can see all the literati laughing and mocking my review because hey that's who we have become as a culture. I don't give a shit, however, and we must stand up for both general and literary integrity.
I do not think I could have felt more despairing and repelled about a novel. This is what we have become and this is what we imbibe and let the arrows fall where they may.
The prose is fair to middling but is also rather pretentious and overly assured. Lots of talent here should the author choose to utilize and work at it. This is so very longwinded and easily could have been cut down by half if not more. Where the fuck are the editors?
The story arc has some great excitement but is choppy and at times non-sensical and super sloppy.
The character sketches are caricatures despite spending a great deal of time on their backgrounds.
The men are one of three types:
-the most benign are the sycophantic assholes
-an assortment of both garden variety and malignant narcissists
-slippery and dangerous sociopathic demon lords
The behaviors are incongruent and psychologically unbelievable for the amount of sadism and violence inflicted. This makes no fuckin sense given their backgrounds. 80 percent of Indian men cannot all be one or more of the above. Just awful !
The lone female love interest in an entitled ever-suffering twat of a young woman. Again her background is no explanation for her less evil but equally repellent ways.
In a nutshell this book is both EMPTILY DISGUSTING and DISGUSTINGLY EMPTY.
I enjoyed visiting different parts of India but this book is ingrained in my psyche and will take a long time to recover from.
I will never read another book by this author. Adios !
June 14, 2023
The AGE OF VICE starts off strong, and then deteriorates and disintegrates, until it ends up a muddled mess. It is a long novel, and consequently, I believe that many will dnf around the 40% to 50% level. For those, like me, who stayed until the end, hoping it would get back on track—eventually—be warned. It doesn’t. In fact by the end it no longer makes sense.
I hesitated between giving it two stars or three. The first section, the story of Ajay, is definitely a five-star read. Ajay was born a Dalit in Uttar Pardesh, and the description of his life is gripping. When he was eight, he forgot to do something, and his lapse led to his father’s violent death and Ajay being sold into slavery. He persevered, through luck and hard work, and ended up working for Sunny Wadia, the rakish heir of a major criminal family. Then, there is a fatal car crash, killing five people, and Ajay is arrested for drunk driving and imprisoned.
During this part of the novel, I was engrossed, even though, in the back of my mind, I was aware that the grammatical structure of the writing was primitive. I forgave this simplicity because Ajay’s story was so good and, as well, the description of India was so fascinating—the descriptions of the city and the various rural countrysides, the lives of the very poor living in the slums and the lives of the very rich living in luxurious mansions, all so vividly reported.
Then, at about the 30% point, Ajay disappears and Neda’s story begins. We first met Neda during Ajay’s story, and now everything we already knew is repeated. Also, the writing gets worse, much more primitive, because Neda is boring and so are her thoughts. Her story is not uniquely Indian, like Ajay’s. Neda is mundane and annoying; she is like any obnoxious middle-class young woman living anywhere. Thus, she could be a middle-class young European or American woman. There is nothing exceptional about her except that somehow she became part of the Ajay and Sunny story. It is as if the author felt she had to include a female in the novel, and Neda became that female.
I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but it does, at roughly the 65% point when we start over again, this time using Sunny’s POV. In this section, Sunny is continuously drinking alcohol and using drugs, and the writing has has completely fallen apart, so there isn’t much of a story except scenes of drinking and drug taking. Also, there are a number of scenes that don’t make any sense. I think that the author may also have tried to write some poetry but, if so, she failed to make a coherent statement with her rambling, unrelated sentences. If anything, I felt that the author was now taking drugs while she was writing; certainly the prose—if you could call it prose—meandered aimlessly without any consistent or harmonious theme.
Then, at the 80% point, a completely new character appears—Sunil Rastogi. I couldn’t decide whether he was human or a mythical non-human, but he plays such an important part in the final 20% of the novel that he should have been introduced much earlier in the story given his decisive role. As it is, his character, and the story’s ending, blur the last 20% of the novel into a meaningless, pointless, enigmatic, and confusing finale.
I borrowed this book from the library. I pity anyone who paid cold, hard cash for this mess. Thanks to the Greater Victoria Public Library for providing this ebook copy.
I hesitated between giving it two stars or three. The first section, the story of Ajay, is definitely a five-star read. Ajay was born a Dalit in Uttar Pardesh, and the description of his life is gripping. When he was eight, he forgot to do something, and his lapse led to his father’s violent death and Ajay being sold into slavery. He persevered, through luck and hard work, and ended up working for Sunny Wadia, the rakish heir of a major criminal family. Then, there is a fatal car crash, killing five people, and Ajay is arrested for drunk driving and imprisoned.
During this part of the novel, I was engrossed, even though, in the back of my mind, I was aware that the grammatical structure of the writing was primitive. I forgave this simplicity because Ajay’s story was so good and, as well, the description of India was so fascinating—the descriptions of the city and the various rural countrysides, the lives of the very poor living in the slums and the lives of the very rich living in luxurious mansions, all so vividly reported.
Then, at about the 30% point, Ajay disappears and Neda’s story begins. We first met Neda during Ajay’s story, and now everything we already knew is repeated. Also, the writing gets worse, much more primitive, because Neda is boring and so are her thoughts. Her story is not uniquely Indian, like Ajay’s. Neda is mundane and annoying; she is like any obnoxious middle-class young woman living anywhere. Thus, she could be a middle-class young European or American woman. There is nothing exceptional about her except that somehow she became part of the Ajay and Sunny story. It is as if the author felt she had to include a female in the novel, and Neda became that female.
I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but it does, at roughly the 65% point when we start over again, this time using Sunny’s POV. In this section, Sunny is continuously drinking alcohol and using drugs, and the writing has has completely fallen apart, so there isn’t much of a story except scenes of drinking and drug taking. Also, there are a number of scenes that don’t make any sense. I think that the author may also have tried to write some poetry but, if so, she failed to make a coherent statement with her rambling, unrelated sentences. If anything, I felt that the author was now taking drugs while she was writing; certainly the prose—if you could call it prose—meandered aimlessly without any consistent or harmonious theme.
Then, at the 80% point, a completely new character appears—Sunil Rastogi. I couldn’t decide whether he was human or a mythical non-human, but he plays such an important part in the final 20% of the novel that he should have been introduced much earlier in the story given his decisive role. As it is, his character, and the story’s ending, blur the last 20% of the novel into a meaningless, pointless, enigmatic, and confusing finale.
I borrowed this book from the library. I pity anyone who paid cold, hard cash for this mess. Thanks to the Greater Victoria Public Library for providing this ebook copy.
January 6, 2023
“Nothing will change. This is Kali Yuga, the losing age, the age of vice.”
Deepti Kapoor's epic razor sharp blend of crime, intrigue and family saga captures the rotten, ruthless, criminally corrupt contemporary dark soul of India, with its thin veneer of modernism and democracy, aiming to disguise the vast, eye watering levels of inequalities between the few at the top, kleptocrats, including powerful and ruthless gangster bosses, protected by the establishment, and the precarious lives of the impoverished majority, death a constant in their lives and finding themselves publicly denigrated. It all begins with a fatal car crash, killing 5, including a pregnant woman, by an apparently drunk driver of a Mercedes, when the smoke settles, Ajay, a servant, will be arrested, imprisoned and a target in prison. This pivotal event changes lives and is the centre of complex intrigues revolving around crime, corruption, family dynamics, betrayal, love and loss as the narrative moves back and forth in time and between extreme ends of wealth and the social class system.
We are immersed in the lives and interactions of 3 individuals, the loyal, eager to please Ajay who has managed to rise from the harrowing death of his father as a young child, extreme impoverishment in eastern Utter Pradish and serving a family in the mountains after being sold. Ajay manages to survive harsh circumstances, he meets Sunny Wadia, who gives him his card and offers him the opportunity to work for him in Delhi. Discreet, hardworking, utterly loyal and not a drinker, Ajay impresses as he rises through the ranks to become Sunny's bodyguard, doing whatever Sunny wants him to do, he would not dream of saying no to anything asked of him. Neda is a privileged young naive Delhi journalist, with little commitment to her profession, wanting to be perceived as cool, she is drawn into the glamorous, artistic, never ending hedonistic parties of drink and drugs, packed with celebrities, run by the philanthropic, patron of the arts, Sunny. How much does she really see Sunny and far will she go for him?
Sunny is the son of feared gangster, Bunty, with a vicious uncle Vicky, he appears to have little in common with his brutally violent and cruel family. Kapoor explores the complicated character of Sunny, his needy and disturbing relationship with his father, deep down is he his father's son? Ajay and Neda place their trust in him, will they live to regret it? This is a scintillating and gripping literary crime drama located right in the nerve centre of modern India's economic, social and political miracle, set in the nation's contested political urban and rural environments, tightly plotted, and with characters that portray the central issues and national tensions plaguing India, the complicity, the lack of ethics and morality, the personal and the political. I am certain this engaging and captivating novel will ensnare the interests of a wide variety of readers. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
Deepti Kapoor's epic razor sharp blend of crime, intrigue and family saga captures the rotten, ruthless, criminally corrupt contemporary dark soul of India, with its thin veneer of modernism and democracy, aiming to disguise the vast, eye watering levels of inequalities between the few at the top, kleptocrats, including powerful and ruthless gangster bosses, protected by the establishment, and the precarious lives of the impoverished majority, death a constant in their lives and finding themselves publicly denigrated. It all begins with a fatal car crash, killing 5, including a pregnant woman, by an apparently drunk driver of a Mercedes, when the smoke settles, Ajay, a servant, will be arrested, imprisoned and a target in prison. This pivotal event changes lives and is the centre of complex intrigues revolving around crime, corruption, family dynamics, betrayal, love and loss as the narrative moves back and forth in time and between extreme ends of wealth and the social class system.
We are immersed in the lives and interactions of 3 individuals, the loyal, eager to please Ajay who has managed to rise from the harrowing death of his father as a young child, extreme impoverishment in eastern Utter Pradish and serving a family in the mountains after being sold. Ajay manages to survive harsh circumstances, he meets Sunny Wadia, who gives him his card and offers him the opportunity to work for him in Delhi. Discreet, hardworking, utterly loyal and not a drinker, Ajay impresses as he rises through the ranks to become Sunny's bodyguard, doing whatever Sunny wants him to do, he would not dream of saying no to anything asked of him. Neda is a privileged young naive Delhi journalist, with little commitment to her profession, wanting to be perceived as cool, she is drawn into the glamorous, artistic, never ending hedonistic parties of drink and drugs, packed with celebrities, run by the philanthropic, patron of the arts, Sunny. How much does she really see Sunny and far will she go for him?
Sunny is the son of feared gangster, Bunty, with a vicious uncle Vicky, he appears to have little in common with his brutally violent and cruel family. Kapoor explores the complicated character of Sunny, his needy and disturbing relationship with his father, deep down is he his father's son? Ajay and Neda place their trust in him, will they live to regret it? This is a scintillating and gripping literary crime drama located right in the nerve centre of modern India's economic, social and political miracle, set in the nation's contested political urban and rural environments, tightly plotted, and with characters that portray the central issues and national tensions plaguing India, the complicity, the lack of ethics and morality, the personal and the political. I am certain this engaging and captivating novel will ensnare the interests of a wide variety of readers. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
January 9, 2023
The last 200 pages of this book totally went off the rails and felt interminable and disjointed to the point that I had a hard time getting through it. Major disappointment considering I invested 545 pages worth of my time into it!
June 3, 2023
Una historia distinta sobre la India, el poder, la corrupción y quienes forman parte de ella, la diferencia de clases sociales. Me gustó el ritmo salvo en las última páginas que lo sentí lento. Una lectura muy entretenida.
Destaco la velocidad que toma la novela a través de los diálogos y la construcción de la misma.
Destaco la velocidad que toma la novela a través de los diálogos y la construcción de la misma.
January 5, 2023
For anyone who values my opinions on books,
I’m tossing up my hands ….
and recommend others read Ron Charles book review —
….and every other 5 star or even 4 star review (are there lower rating reviews?- ha ha!)….
“Age of Vice” is the ‘real deal’ worthy HYPE!
…..it was certainly a great diverting distraction from my recent quibbles.
I had added fun re-visiting my own memories from having traveled in India …
I lived in Goa for several months during part of my almost year stay in India years ago.
Those pristine beaches were gorgeous.
The descriptions brought me right back — drinking a coca-cola and eating samosas.
The book begins with a very-catchy-explosive ‘suck-us-in’ scene….in other words it’s a fast take-off start!
….then we are taken back to a little story ….
We moved through timelines — and settings — cities through India — states — London — ending in New Delhi…2008.
The storytelling is ‘in-our-face’ stimulating-hypnotizing … filled with intrigue….
breathtaking - emotionally intelligent (painful reality between the wealthy growth in India versus those living in poverty)….
and
……at times this novel (getting past the crimes and profanity), is tremendously moving!
Spending time with Ajay, Sunny Wadia, Neda and the other charismatic-diversified characters in this modern day Indian family crime thriller/saga - is pure page-turning entertainment!
It’s fair to make a ‘Godfather’ type connection….
…..some similar qualities:
….drama, violence, love, loss, naivety, romance, loyalty, friendship, yummy foods, drugs, gangsters, political and moral corruption, laughter, suspense…
It’s totally enthralling!!
I’ll be turning into the screen series along with other “Age of Vice” junkies.
I’m tossing up my hands ….
and recommend others read Ron Charles book review —
….and every other 5 star or even 4 star review (are there lower rating reviews?- ha ha!)….
“Age of Vice” is the ‘real deal’ worthy HYPE!
…..it was certainly a great diverting distraction from my recent quibbles.
I had added fun re-visiting my own memories from having traveled in India …
I lived in Goa for several months during part of my almost year stay in India years ago.
Those pristine beaches were gorgeous.
The descriptions brought me right back — drinking a coca-cola and eating samosas.
The book begins with a very-catchy-explosive ‘suck-us-in’ scene….in other words it’s a fast take-off start!
….then we are taken back to a little story ….
We moved through timelines — and settings — cities through India — states — London — ending in New Delhi…2008.
The storytelling is ‘in-our-face’ stimulating-hypnotizing … filled with intrigue….
breathtaking - emotionally intelligent (painful reality between the wealthy growth in India versus those living in poverty)….
and
……at times this novel (getting past the crimes and profanity), is tremendously moving!
Spending time with Ajay, Sunny Wadia, Neda and the other charismatic-diversified characters in this modern day Indian family crime thriller/saga - is pure page-turning entertainment!
It’s fair to make a ‘Godfather’ type connection….
…..some similar qualities:
….drama, violence, love, loss, naivety, romance, loyalty, friendship, yummy foods, drugs, gangsters, political and moral corruption, laughter, suspense…
It’s totally enthralling!!
I’ll be turning into the screen series along with other “Age of Vice” junkies.
December 1, 2022
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor is a 2023 Riverhead Books publication.
It’s been ages since I read a good crime drama/family saga. Age of Vice certainly fits that bill. The psychology behind powerful family run criminal enterprises, the glitter of vast wealth, the innocent people that get drawn in or trapped in that web is always compelling.
Set in India in the early 2000s, the story follows Sunny Wadia, the son of a corrupt businessman, Anjay, a boy who witnessed horrible violence and was then sold into servitude, eventually coming to work for Sunny- constantly at his beck and call, and Neda, a journalist working on a story who becomes dazzled by Sunny’s wealth and exciting lifestyle. But when a horrific car crash occurs, it changes the course of their lives in unexpected ways…
This one is a bit hefty, but it is such an absorbing page turner it goes by super-fast. This is, by far, one of the best modern organized crime dramas, I’ve read in ages. This book is definitely worthy of all the buzz and excitement! Can’t wait to read more books by this author!!
It’s been ages since I read a good crime drama/family saga. Age of Vice certainly fits that bill. The psychology behind powerful family run criminal enterprises, the glitter of vast wealth, the innocent people that get drawn in or trapped in that web is always compelling.
Set in India in the early 2000s, the story follows Sunny Wadia, the son of a corrupt businessman, Anjay, a boy who witnessed horrible violence and was then sold into servitude, eventually coming to work for Sunny- constantly at his beck and call, and Neda, a journalist working on a story who becomes dazzled by Sunny’s wealth and exciting lifestyle. But when a horrific car crash occurs, it changes the course of their lives in unexpected ways…
This one is a bit hefty, but it is such an absorbing page turner it goes by super-fast. This is, by far, one of the best modern organized crime dramas, I’ve read in ages. This book is definitely worthy of all the buzz and excitement! Can’t wait to read more books by this author!!
January 31, 2023
✨Book Review✨
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
.
The entire first half of this book was a five star read. I couldn't put it down. I LOVED Ajay's story and character SO much. Once the story shifted away from him, it really lost me. I did get back into Neda's story and her relationship with Sunny definitely kept me wanting to read. But as Sunny began to spiral and unravel, so did the rest of the book for me. I stopped being able to keep track of characters, and I did not understand the point of so many of the storylines.
.
I've seen so many reviews about the cliffhanger ending, but by the time I got to the end I wasn't really all that interested anymore. I've seen that this is the first book in a trilogy. I might read the next book to try to get back that feeling from the first half of the book, but we will see.
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
.
The entire first half of this book was a five star read. I couldn't put it down. I LOVED Ajay's story and character SO much. Once the story shifted away from him, it really lost me. I did get back into Neda's story and her relationship with Sunny definitely kept me wanting to read. But as Sunny began to spiral and unravel, so did the rest of the book for me. I stopped being able to keep track of characters, and I did not understand the point of so many of the storylines.
.
I've seen so many reviews about the cliffhanger ending, but by the time I got to the end I wasn't really all that interested anymore. I've seen that this is the first book in a trilogy. I might read the next book to try to get back that feeling from the first half of the book, but we will see.
December 18, 2022
4.5
The story begins in 1991 with an 8-year-old boy, Ajay, in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, where people struggle to survive. It’s full of dramatic action, the kind that reveals both character and society. We follow Ajay’s rise from job to job, each time with new rules in new surroundings. He’s so likable, so good, a quiet observer, and through him we piece together the currents of modern-day India. His story could almost be a novella in itself. It ends in high drama, and we’re left wanting more.
Then things shift. We follow a different character, then another. At first, I felt cast out - I’d grown deeply attached to Ajay’s story. But as we spent more time with Neda, a female journalist of privilege in her early 20s, I adapted to the faster pace, the snappy dialogue, the days-long parties of the wasteful young. Where Ajay learned of his world by observing, Neda tested and engaged. Ajay’s journey felt interior, Neda’s cinematic. Neda’s sharp mind fooled her into thinking she could hold her own with power (in conversation she was equal), but then her naïveté shatters. The storylines merge from opposite ends, revealing the pulse of a society. At the center of its orbit is Sunny, the son of a ruling gangster who came up in the same place as Ajay, who struggles with all the emptiness his life can afford, and vacillates between two life paths. His decisions make Ajay and Neda what they become.
Thanks to Barnes & Noble, and Riverhead Books, for the advanced uncorrected proof on which this review was based.
The story begins in 1991 with an 8-year-old boy, Ajay, in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, where people struggle to survive. It’s full of dramatic action, the kind that reveals both character and society. We follow Ajay’s rise from job to job, each time with new rules in new surroundings. He’s so likable, so good, a quiet observer, and through him we piece together the currents of modern-day India. His story could almost be a novella in itself. It ends in high drama, and we’re left wanting more.
Then things shift. We follow a different character, then another. At first, I felt cast out - I’d grown deeply attached to Ajay’s story. But as we spent more time with Neda, a female journalist of privilege in her early 20s, I adapted to the faster pace, the snappy dialogue, the days-long parties of the wasteful young. Where Ajay learned of his world by observing, Neda tested and engaged. Ajay’s journey felt interior, Neda’s cinematic. Neda’s sharp mind fooled her into thinking she could hold her own with power (in conversation she was equal), but then her naïveté shatters. The storylines merge from opposite ends, revealing the pulse of a society. At the center of its orbit is Sunny, the son of a ruling gangster who came up in the same place as Ajay, who struggles with all the emptiness his life can afford, and vacillates between two life paths. His decisions make Ajay and Neda what they become.
Thanks to Barnes & Noble, and Riverhead Books, for the advanced uncorrected proof on which this review was based.
January 9, 2023
wheewww! this chonk of a book is everywhere/super hyped and SO much fun to read. if you’re looking for a unique, thrilling, eye-opening, jaw-dropping, family drama, greed and wealth, scandals galore type book—look no further than AGE OF VICE!
this was picked up by FX for a tv series in a bidding war THREE YEARS before it released. if that alone doesn’t tell you a lot about this story 👀 the author has a strong cinematic eye—you can picture EVERYTHING as it plays out. it truly was written like an action movie/family drama and all the detail was heavy and a lot (hello, 550+ pages…) but it really helped illustrate everything. and i mean, evvvvverything.
this book is set to be the first in a trilogy and boy oh boy does it end in a cliffhanger! i wished i could continue with this story and wasn’t ready to leave the world of Wadia. it was so much fun. Ajay had my heart!!!
to be fair, i think this book is a STRONG 4, even a 4.5. but it fell just shy of 5 for me. it was close! but the backhalf really tapered off pacing and storyline wise.
the first 60% of the book was fantastic. you get 3 different POVs of the same timeframe/situation from 3 main characters and it’s incredible to see their different experiences, thoughts, secrets, etc. and the tone of the book really varies based on who is telling the story. i was so nervous it was going to be a slow burn given the length but it moves so quickly and there’s hardly any pages without drama or action.
then… the book kind of lost me. post-crash (keeping spoiler free) and “present day” chapters were a bit boring and we were introduced to a new character and the story (and pace) totally changed. i didnt care for this character and it seemed very random and hard to follow. i’m sure there is much more to unpack with this character as we move into books #2 and #3, but time will tell.
this would be such a fun book club pick—GMA snagged it for January and naturally that’s only helping with all the buzz and success. snag it for yours!!
thank you Riverhead Books for the gifted ARC and package to celebrate this release. can’t wait for #2!!! bravo to Deepti Kapoor on this, i’m SO impressed 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
more of a true review to come on my IG this week🖤
this was picked up by FX for a tv series in a bidding war THREE YEARS before it released. if that alone doesn’t tell you a lot about this story 👀 the author has a strong cinematic eye—you can picture EVERYTHING as it plays out. it truly was written like an action movie/family drama and all the detail was heavy and a lot (hello, 550+ pages…) but it really helped illustrate everything. and i mean, evvvvverything.
this book is set to be the first in a trilogy and boy oh boy does it end in a cliffhanger! i wished i could continue with this story and wasn’t ready to leave the world of Wadia. it was so much fun. Ajay had my heart!!!
to be fair, i think this book is a STRONG 4, even a 4.5. but it fell just shy of 5 for me. it was close! but the backhalf really tapered off pacing and storyline wise.
the first 60% of the book was fantastic. you get 3 different POVs of the same timeframe/situation from 3 main characters and it’s incredible to see their different experiences, thoughts, secrets, etc. and the tone of the book really varies based on who is telling the story. i was so nervous it was going to be a slow burn given the length but it moves so quickly and there’s hardly any pages without drama or action.
then… the book kind of lost me. post-crash (keeping spoiler free) and “present day” chapters were a bit boring and we were introduced to a new character and the story (and pace) totally changed. i didnt care for this character and it seemed very random and hard to follow. i’m sure there is much more to unpack with this character as we move into books #2 and #3, but time will tell.
this would be such a fun book club pick—GMA snagged it for January and naturally that’s only helping with all the buzz and success. snag it for yours!!
thank you Riverhead Books for the gifted ARC and package to celebrate this release. can’t wait for #2!!! bravo to Deepti Kapoor on this, i’m SO impressed 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
more of a true review to come on my IG this week🖤
December 30, 2022
Forget the fireworks in New York, London and Dubai. The most dazzling explosions to herald 2023 come from Deepti Kapoor’s novel “Age of Vice.”
Swinging from the hovels to the palaces of contemporary India, this hypnotic story poses a horrible dilemma: For days, I was torn between gorging on “Age of Vice” or rationing out the chapters to make them last. Finally free from the book’s grip, now all I want to do is get others hooked.
Kapoor was born in northern India and worked for several years as a journalist in Delhi, an experience that clearly informs this lush thriller. More than two years ago, having spotted Kapoor’s ferocious plot, arresting characters and electric dialogue, FX locked down “Age of Vice” for a series; rights to the novel have already been sold in 20 countries.
This is a rare case of a book bounding as high as its hype.
On the first page, a Mercedes speeding through Delhi careens off the street and slaughters five people, including a pregnant woman who had just arrived in the city. That deadly accident ricochets through one of India’s most powerful crime families — and from there the intrigue never pauses to take a breath.
When authorities arrive on the grisly scene of the crash, they find a. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
Swinging from the hovels to the palaces of contemporary India, this hypnotic story poses a horrible dilemma: For days, I was torn between gorging on “Age of Vice” or rationing out the chapters to make them last. Finally free from the book’s grip, now all I want to do is get others hooked.
Kapoor was born in northern India and worked for several years as a journalist in Delhi, an experience that clearly informs this lush thriller. More than two years ago, having spotted Kapoor’s ferocious plot, arresting characters and electric dialogue, FX locked down “Age of Vice” for a series; rights to the novel have already been sold in 20 countries.
This is a rare case of a book bounding as high as its hype.
On the first page, a Mercedes speeding through Delhi careens off the street and slaughters five people, including a pregnant woman who had just arrived in the city. That deadly accident ricochets through one of India’s most powerful crime families — and from there the intrigue never pauses to take a breath.
When authorities arrive on the grisly scene of the crash, they find a. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
January 11, 2023
This started off great then went steadily downhill all the way to rock bottom in the end. I ask yet again, publishing industry, WHERE ARE THE EDITORS?? Who is approving these unnecessarily long and boring books??? Why???? I am flabbergasted by the rave reviews this one is receiving. Are y’all okay? Do you enjoy being emotionally abused? I was only invested in Ajay’s character arc which *spoiler* never seemed to come to fruition. Literally the gun was in your hand Ajay, all you had to do was shoot. Anyways..if you like the Godfather and books deemed “literary fiction” where every third word is ‘fuck’ for almost six HUNDRED pages, I would definitely recommend this.
January 11, 2023
Age of Vice, set in India, is a compelling crime thriller mixed with a family saga.
It begins with the police finding a young man named Ajay inebriated in a flashy Mercedes surrounded by a group of dead bodies. The police suspect he just rammed through the crowd sleeping on the pavement. At first glance, the police see Ajay as a man vested in wealth, but upon closer inspection, they realize he is a servant. When the police ask him what happened to cause him to crash his employer’s car, he remains silent.
The story unfolds from here, starting with Ajay’s impoverished youth to how he eventually came to work for one of India’s most wealthy and powerful families; and how he wound up in that vehicle. It is a story of violence, crime, and extravagance juxtaposed with extreme poverty.
It has three main POVs and a few extra thrown in for good measure.
It is an epic book, clocking in at over 500 pages, but it did not feel excessively long. Sometimes there would be pages of dialogue, but then it would be followed by a single paragraph taking up the whole page, so it felt balanced.
I thoroughly enjoyed Ajay’s sections. I would have been happy reading a whole book from just his pov.
I’m not super into reading about bad people doing bad things, aka crime novels, but Neda and Ajay were enough to keep my interest going. Although, the other characters brought more clarity into what was going on in this climate.
I believe Age of Vice is the first book in a trilogy, so the cliffhanger ending makes a lot more sense. My one qualm would be that there was loads of build up, but towards the end, it felt slightly rushed and chaotic. However, it did have a cinematic feel to it. Hopefully, the next book will clear everything up.
I highly recommend trying this if you enjoy thrillers and crime novels.
Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
https://booksandwheels.com
It begins with the police finding a young man named Ajay inebriated in a flashy Mercedes surrounded by a group of dead bodies. The police suspect he just rammed through the crowd sleeping on the pavement. At first glance, the police see Ajay as a man vested in wealth, but upon closer inspection, they realize he is a servant. When the police ask him what happened to cause him to crash his employer’s car, he remains silent.
The story unfolds from here, starting with Ajay’s impoverished youth to how he eventually came to work for one of India’s most wealthy and powerful families; and how he wound up in that vehicle. It is a story of violence, crime, and extravagance juxtaposed with extreme poverty.
It has three main POVs and a few extra thrown in for good measure.
It is an epic book, clocking in at over 500 pages, but it did not feel excessively long. Sometimes there would be pages of dialogue, but then it would be followed by a single paragraph taking up the whole page, so it felt balanced.
I thoroughly enjoyed Ajay’s sections. I would have been happy reading a whole book from just his pov.
I’m not super into reading about bad people doing bad things, aka crime novels, but Neda and Ajay were enough to keep my interest going. Although, the other characters brought more clarity into what was going on in this climate.
I believe Age of Vice is the first book in a trilogy, so the cliffhanger ending makes a lot more sense. My one qualm would be that there was loads of build up, but towards the end, it felt slightly rushed and chaotic. However, it did have a cinematic feel to it. Hopefully, the next book will clear everything up.
I highly recommend trying this if you enjoy thrillers and crime novels.
Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
https://booksandwheels.com
August 26, 2022
AGE OF VICE is hands down one of the best books I've ever read. This book is not typically the genre I read—an action-packed thriller with mobsters, dirty money, and gangsters—but when you hear high praise about this book so early on (hello we're still in Q3 2022!), you pick it up! This story is of epic proportions, but really only features a small group of main characters. Sunny Wadia and his wealthy family take center stage, but his girlfriend Neda and his servant/right-hand-man Ajay (my favorite character) will steal the show.
I don't want to tell too much of this story but the Wadia family runs Delhi, India. Their money and influence is unprecedented and they control everything and everyone they get in contact with. With money, power, and corruption; things are surely going to spin out. I'm not going to get into the characters' backstories but Ajay's will break your heart. The twists and turns, and difficult decisions that each of these characters make to survive will leave your emotionally breathless.
This story touches on very sensitive topics such as trafficking, drug use, violence and murder, and kidnapping—and that is only the immediate things that pop into my head. Deepti Kapoor, I need to know the backstory with how this book came about in your mind. It's incredible to see that such a thick book (530ish pages) was read by me in THREE DAYS! My attention span was completely enthralled the entire time. I've never met an author who can write such a massive, epic story, with zero slow burn! I already know this will be in my top 2023 reads and it's only August 2022. A gut punch to the heart, this book is a masterpiece to say the least and a book that I will remember for a long time.
I don't want to tell too much of this story but the Wadia family runs Delhi, India. Their money and influence is unprecedented and they control everything and everyone they get in contact with. With money, power, and corruption; things are surely going to spin out. I'm not going to get into the characters' backstories but Ajay's will break your heart. The twists and turns, and difficult decisions that each of these characters make to survive will leave your emotionally breathless.
This story touches on very sensitive topics such as trafficking, drug use, violence and murder, and kidnapping—and that is only the immediate things that pop into my head. Deepti Kapoor, I need to know the backstory with how this book came about in your mind. It's incredible to see that such a thick book (530ish pages) was read by me in THREE DAYS! My attention span was completely enthralled the entire time. I've never met an author who can write such a massive, epic story, with zero slow burn! I already know this will be in my top 2023 reads and it's only August 2022. A gut punch to the heart, this book is a masterpiece to say the least and a book that I will remember for a long time.
January 20, 2023
Shantaram meets The white tiger.
Tries to be epic. It is just a soap opera.
Pretends to be about the rise of a poor indian guy. He is just the servant. The protagonist is a "poor me" rich guy.
Questionable use of the gay/ trans characters. The subplot could have been entirely erased and it wouldn't matter to the story. Maybe the intentions were good, but the results are on the homophobic side.
I liked one subplot at the end, but it came too late and couldn't solve the many problems of this book.
Tries to be epic. It is just a soap opera.
Pretends to be about the rise of a poor indian guy. He is just the servant. The protagonist is a "poor me" rich guy.
Questionable use of the gay/ trans characters. The subplot could have been entirely erased and it wouldn't matter to the story. Maybe the intentions were good, but the results are on the homophobic side.
I liked one subplot at the end, but it came too late and couldn't solve the many problems of this book.
January 29, 2023
This was a great surprise.
I did not expect to like this book, as I do no like short sentences, especially written in present tense, but I was impressed by the author’s creativity and use of words.
I was enthralled by the storyline and the characters.
The structure of the book was skillfully executed and I did not find confusing.
I liked the different POVs and how everything fitted together. There were plenty of surprises.
Now, I don’t think that this book will please everyone, especially because of the writing style, language and the raw and brutal violence.
This is book one of 3, and I heard that it’s going to be adapted as a TV series.
Hardcover: 544 pages
Ebook: 557 pages (default), 151k words
Estimated reading time: 12 hours
PS.: number of use of the “f” word: 134
I did not expect to like this book, as I do no like short sentences, especially written in present tense, but I was impressed by the author’s creativity and use of words.
I was enthralled by the storyline and the characters.
The structure of the book was skillfully executed and I did not find confusing.
I liked the different POVs and how everything fitted together. There were plenty of surprises.
Now, I don’t think that this book will please everyone, especially because of the writing style, language and the raw and brutal violence.
This is book one of 3, and I heard that it’s going to be adapted as a TV series.
Hardcover: 544 pages
Ebook: 557 pages (default), 151k words
Estimated reading time: 12 hours
PS.: number of use of the “f” word: 134
January 26, 2023
Ajay is born into poverty, a Dalit or untouchable. His parents scavenge and live on a knife’s edge of existence. When their goat gets loose and eats the neighbor’s spinach, it will lead to unthinkable consequences, one of which results in Ajay being taken into captivity and carried far away from the place he knew as home in Uttar Pradesh. In a cage with other boys, the totality of this experience becomes like a blanket of horror that informs the person that eight-year-old Ajay will become. Thankfully, he ends up with people that treat him well as far as feeding him and not abusing him, but they expect a man’s work from him. Here, he learns to associate happiness with pleasing others. These feelings of pleasing others Ajay conjoins with feelings of security and protection, forming one of the major themes of the book, vulnerability versus invincibility. This theme will at times overlap with the theme of action and power versus passivity.
When Ajay is a teenager, he meets Sunny Wadia, the charismatically handsome playboy heir to his father’s gangster throne. At that time, Ajay is working in a cafe, where Sunny hangs out with a group of friends (those in thrall of Sunny’s money and influence). Ajay waits on Sunny hand and foot. Ajay is content to work like this, but a girl in the group calls him, “puppy.” Sunny is impressed enough with Ajay to offer him work in Delhi. In Delhi, Ajay becomes Sunny’s most loyal servant, “his driver, his butler, his everything… Ajay is the beating heart of Sunny’s world. Wordless, faceless, content.” Eli, a young man trained in the Israeli Defence Forces teaches Ajay the Israeli martial arts known as Krav Maga. While Ajay becomes capable, Eli tells him that he lacks the spark of violence that is needed to become fully fluent in the art.
In Delhi, Ajay becomes aware of the abject poverty of his birth. His impoverished origins are highlighted as he seeks to become another man, someone who can rise above his past. When Sunny meets Neda, a young woman from an intellectual family, Ajay sees how close they become. For the first time in his life, Ajay becomes aware of his own brokenness; he realizes that it’s possible he will never be able to become intimate with another person in the same way that Sunny and Neda are intimate. The fact that Neda makes eye contact with Ajay, 'sees him' increases Ajay's awareness of this flaw within himself. At the same time, Ajay is also afflicted with the blindness of an illusory fantasy world. He begins to think of returning home to Uttar Pradesh (UP) as a big man in his safari suit, a man of means and success with enough money to elevate his poverty stricken family. “I am returning as a big man, a man of means, a success. Even as he imagines this homecoming, a dark part of him knows it is a lie.” The second major theme is awareness versus blindness, at times a willful blindness and at times, just a pitch dark unknowing. These are conflicts along with trying to form a sense of identity that swirl at the heart of the novel. Who is Ajay? He is becoming known as a Wadia man. Sunny even calls Ajay his brother. When Sunny learns that Ajay is from UP, he says, “we spring from the same soil.”
Sunny Wadia is also conflicted about his evolving sense of identity. He understands much of where his father’s wealth has come from yet toys with his own fantasies of building a major city along the Yamuna River in Delhi. He makes himself willfully blind as to how the flooding of Yamuna makes this impossible and regards the relocation of the slum residents as easily managed. He imagines himself as a patron of the arts and a do-gooder but as the novel progresses it becomes easier and easier to see how difficult it will be for Sunny to access his father’s wealth and remain this good person of his fantasy. Sunny is becoming complicit with his father’s actions by flying in exotic foods at exorbitant prices to his extravagant parties while indulging in drugs and alcohol, even as he continues to spin his dreams.
The social conscience of the novel is Dean Saldanha, a journalist at The Post. He sees the poor people of Delhi and writes about them and their living conditions in the slums and illegal settlements along the Yamuna River and in other places in Delhi. “He wanted to paint this shifting, unstable city in words, wanted to immortalize the daily struggles of its citizens.” Dean is a secondary character, but we learn more about Neda, his assistant, who often shares a byline with him, in how she compares herself to him.
“All Neda’s life, this was a part of Delhi that she saw and didn’t see. The slums had always been there; every time she crossed the river she looked down on the ramshackle city clinging to the banks. They were inevitable, they were ugly, they induced shame, guilt, in momentary slashes, but their people were submerged in her mind. If she thought about any of it at all, she thought it was Delhi, an eyesore, a sign of failure. But Dean saw the slums as people, and he saw their destruction as a tragedy.”
Again, the theme of awareness versus blindness comes up. It is often tempting to become blind to societal ills, especially when we feel that nothing can be done to bring about change. Yet, I feel that Deepti Kapoor is warning us against this blindness and shows how even though we may feel hopeless to bring about change, that to become numb to reality is a blindness that we cannot afford because it allows us to keep telling ourselves lies. Lies that may keep us from affecting change if an opportunity ever presents itself.
I have never been interested in reading gangster books, but it was the one selection of BOTM that intrigued me, and I’m glad I chose it. The author is skilled and has crafted an enthralling epic. Deepti Kapoor, in an NPR interview, describes Ajay as an “oppressed everyman,” and said that he is based on a young man she met while traveling. She describes seeing this faceless class of servants waiting on the wealthy. The book also seems to come from Kapoor’s sense of loss as her father died while she was at university, then not long after that, her first boyfriend died. She admits in an interview with thehindu.com that “Neda has parts of me. There’s a core of my life in the novel.” I felt this while I was reading about Neda, that the author had imparted something of herself into the way Neda was aware of and at the same time lamented her passivity. It was very powerful.
This is not a perfect novel. A new character is introduced at the end and his inclusion is not as smooth as I would have wished. The language and violence are gritty and while I did not think it sensationalized, there may be some who will. Every trigger warning you can imagine can be applied. While some are describing this novel as a ‘masala potboiler,’ I believe Kapoor has brought to life some exceptional characters that will be on my mind for quite some time. Ajay’s experiences and transformation are all too heartbreakingly real.
When Ajay is a teenager, he meets Sunny Wadia, the charismatically handsome playboy heir to his father’s gangster throne. At that time, Ajay is working in a cafe, where Sunny hangs out with a group of friends (those in thrall of Sunny’s money and influence). Ajay waits on Sunny hand and foot. Ajay is content to work like this, but a girl in the group calls him, “puppy.” Sunny is impressed enough with Ajay to offer him work in Delhi. In Delhi, Ajay becomes Sunny’s most loyal servant, “his driver, his butler, his everything… Ajay is the beating heart of Sunny’s world. Wordless, faceless, content.” Eli, a young man trained in the Israeli Defence Forces teaches Ajay the Israeli martial arts known as Krav Maga. While Ajay becomes capable, Eli tells him that he lacks the spark of violence that is needed to become fully fluent in the art.
In Delhi, Ajay becomes aware of the abject poverty of his birth. His impoverished origins are highlighted as he seeks to become another man, someone who can rise above his past. When Sunny meets Neda, a young woman from an intellectual family, Ajay sees how close they become. For the first time in his life, Ajay becomes aware of his own brokenness; he realizes that it’s possible he will never be able to become intimate with another person in the same way that Sunny and Neda are intimate. The fact that Neda makes eye contact with Ajay, 'sees him' increases Ajay's awareness of this flaw within himself. At the same time, Ajay is also afflicted with the blindness of an illusory fantasy world. He begins to think of returning home to Uttar Pradesh (UP) as a big man in his safari suit, a man of means and success with enough money to elevate his poverty stricken family. “I am returning as a big man, a man of means, a success. Even as he imagines this homecoming, a dark part of him knows it is a lie.” The second major theme is awareness versus blindness, at times a willful blindness and at times, just a pitch dark unknowing. These are conflicts along with trying to form a sense of identity that swirl at the heart of the novel. Who is Ajay? He is becoming known as a Wadia man. Sunny even calls Ajay his brother. When Sunny learns that Ajay is from UP, he says, “we spring from the same soil.”
Sunny Wadia is also conflicted about his evolving sense of identity. He understands much of where his father’s wealth has come from yet toys with his own fantasies of building a major city along the Yamuna River in Delhi. He makes himself willfully blind as to how the flooding of Yamuna makes this impossible and regards the relocation of the slum residents as easily managed. He imagines himself as a patron of the arts and a do-gooder but as the novel progresses it becomes easier and easier to see how difficult it will be for Sunny to access his father’s wealth and remain this good person of his fantasy. Sunny is becoming complicit with his father’s actions by flying in exotic foods at exorbitant prices to his extravagant parties while indulging in drugs and alcohol, even as he continues to spin his dreams.
The social conscience of the novel is Dean Saldanha, a journalist at The Post. He sees the poor people of Delhi and writes about them and their living conditions in the slums and illegal settlements along the Yamuna River and in other places in Delhi. “He wanted to paint this shifting, unstable city in words, wanted to immortalize the daily struggles of its citizens.” Dean is a secondary character, but we learn more about Neda, his assistant, who often shares a byline with him, in how she compares herself to him.
“All Neda’s life, this was a part of Delhi that she saw and didn’t see. The slums had always been there; every time she crossed the river she looked down on the ramshackle city clinging to the banks. They were inevitable, they were ugly, they induced shame, guilt, in momentary slashes, but their people were submerged in her mind. If she thought about any of it at all, she thought it was Delhi, an eyesore, a sign of failure. But Dean saw the slums as people, and he saw their destruction as a tragedy.”
Again, the theme of awareness versus blindness comes up. It is often tempting to become blind to societal ills, especially when we feel that nothing can be done to bring about change. Yet, I feel that Deepti Kapoor is warning us against this blindness and shows how even though we may feel hopeless to bring about change, that to become numb to reality is a blindness that we cannot afford because it allows us to keep telling ourselves lies. Lies that may keep us from affecting change if an opportunity ever presents itself.
I have never been interested in reading gangster books, but it was the one selection of BOTM that intrigued me, and I’m glad I chose it. The author is skilled and has crafted an enthralling epic. Deepti Kapoor, in an NPR interview, describes Ajay as an “oppressed everyman,” and said that he is based on a young man she met while traveling. She describes seeing this faceless class of servants waiting on the wealthy. The book also seems to come from Kapoor’s sense of loss as her father died while she was at university, then not long after that, her first boyfriend died. She admits in an interview with thehindu.com that “Neda has parts of me. There’s a core of my life in the novel.” I felt this while I was reading about Neda, that the author had imparted something of herself into the way Neda was aware of and at the same time lamented her passivity. It was very powerful.
This is not a perfect novel. A new character is introduced at the end and his inclusion is not as smooth as I would have wished. The language and violence are gritty and while I did not think it sensationalized, there may be some who will. Every trigger warning you can imagine can be applied. While some are describing this novel as a ‘masala potboiler,’ I believe Kapoor has brought to life some exceptional characters that will be on my mind for quite some time. Ajay’s experiences and transformation are all too heartbreakingly real.
April 18, 2023
Me sentindo ENGANADO descobrindo depois de terminar que é uma trilogia!!!!
January 6, 2023
Oh, Ajay. Sweet, complacent Ajay. What have you done?
Can we just talk about the fact that I finished this beast in 36 hours? Who am I? Kapoor’s writing makes it so easy for the reader to picture everything in his or her head so vividly. I was flying through pages because I felt like I was literally watching everything unfold before my eyes. You can imagine my excitement, then, when I heard this was already selected by FX to be a television series. There will also be two more books in the saga… sign me up! In short, Age of Vice is like Sons of Anarchy without the motorcycles (but maybe there are just a few motorcycles sprinkled in…).
I started getting serious Anakin vibes about a quarter of the way through the novel. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you know what I mean. The reader faces a man who will go to any means to get his revenge. Actually, several of these men. These people are pretty fucked up.
If I had to pick one thing that made this book stand out to me, it would be the multiple points of view. Instead of alternating chapters between characters as is typical of this writing style, Kapoor writes the same events through different eyes. Very interesting!
Another book I likely never would have read if not for Book of the Month. A juicy delight.
Can we just talk about the fact that I finished this beast in 36 hours? Who am I? Kapoor’s writing makes it so easy for the reader to picture everything in his or her head so vividly. I was flying through pages because I felt like I was literally watching everything unfold before my eyes. You can imagine my excitement, then, when I heard this was already selected by FX to be a television series. There will also be two more books in the saga… sign me up! In short, Age of Vice is like Sons of Anarchy without the motorcycles (but maybe there are just a few motorcycles sprinkled in…).
I started getting serious Anakin vibes about a quarter of the way through the novel. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you know what I mean. The reader faces a man who will go to any means to get his revenge. Actually, several of these men. These people are pretty fucked up.
If I had to pick one thing that made this book stand out to me, it would be the multiple points of view. Instead of alternating chapters between characters as is typical of this writing style, Kapoor writes the same events through different eyes. Very interesting!
Another book I likely never would have read if not for Book of the Month. A juicy delight.
January 10, 2023
Ugh, this was a disappointing experience BECAUSE I devoured the first half in one sitting, agog at the quality of writing and the impeccable pacing. Then, the second half totally lost me and felt like a slog.
I would 100% try this author again, but this one definitely lost me.
I would 100% try this author again, but this one definitely lost me.
April 16, 2023
Waiting for the knock on his door. Waiting for the door to be broken down. Gun in hand. Waiting for death to come. And when it didn't, he went searching for it instead. Certain this was the end. He wanted to die. Yes. He's living in death. pg. 165
This book was good. It's smart, it's well put-together, it's addicting. You won't want to put it down. You have to know what happens. You have to see what happens next.
It's also the first read published in 2023 for me!
It all happens in a matter of seconds.
Of the three men, the gunman dies first. He's the one reaching for the bag, the one taking his eye off their prey. All Ajay needs is instinct, the split-second understanding that the gun is no longer in the back of his head but pointed at the sky. Ajay spins away. He doesn't think how he might die, how his brains may explode and splatter the earth. He spins and grabs the gunman's wrist and the gun goes off as they fall to the ground. He is the first to react. Thank Eli for that, all those hours of dry, mechanical training. But who to thank for the rage? Sunny? His mother? They fall and Ajay snaps the gunman's arm. The machete goon is already coming at him. But something about the sound of the arm bone cracking makes him come half-heartedly, and that's all Ajay needs to leap forward and take him down, pin the machete hand with his knee and smash the goon repeatedly in the face. Grab the goon's head in his hands and smash it against the dirt. Take the machete and slit his throat. Take the machete and hack at the head of the gunman with the shattered arm. When Ajay turns, panting, his eyes a film of blood, Vipin Tyagi is rooted to the spot, his own eyes wide, jaw agape. "I can take you to them, brother!" Vipin cries. But Ajay doesn't care anymore. The red mist has fallen. He strides toward Vipin, raises the blade, and brings it down into Vipin's face. pg. 109
That being said, it's a brutal, dark, grim book. Do not expect any happiness here.
It's about the Indian mob. Long story short: basically that's it. And if you are looking for a happy mob story, it doesn't exist. Baffles me how many mafioso romance novels are being written now... there's nothing romantic about being in organized crime. Nothing. NOTHING.
As to be expected in a novel based in this... lifestyle... there is tons of filth in here. Rape, m/m rape, child rape, gang rape, corruption, slavery, child slavery, filth, sexual slavery, torture, killing of infants, murder, suicide,... sex trafficking. Not sure if sex trafficking was covered by 'sexual slavery' or not, but there it is. Does this list exhaust you? Depress you? You might want to check your headspace before diving into this book. Kapoor doesn't spare you, she will not have mercy on you. Don't expect any grace here.
This book will absolutely immerse you in India. You will smell, breathe, taste, see India in front of you. It's also quite addictive. It kind of reminds me of those pot-boilers that American woman wrote in the '80s (unrelated to India). I can't remember her name! They were so dramatic but very page-turning. Something was always happening to make you say, "One more chapter!"
Then he sees the gun and remembers.
He is his own destroyer.
He has come to erase the wound. pg. 105
That's not to demean Kapoor's talent at all. She's smart. She writes with a deft knowledge and a dry, muscular style. It's going to be hugely appealing to men, I can see tons of male readers loving this novel. There's so much about this novel that is going to hit home with a masculine audience. An impoverished boy dragging himself up from the gutter by his bloody knuckles, turning into a mob man and a trained killer. A rich, petulant mob prince revolting against his evil daddy but at the same time knowing he can never make it without daddy's power and money. A cool, reckless, beautiful journalist who likes to skate the edge getting romantically involved with a man she knows she shouldn't. It's very cinematic, it's dramatic, it's India.
"Take a look at your own backyard. Study your history, man. You people looted us, took everything, stole our treasures. Now you look at us and say, "You're so spiritual, you have so much wisdom, you're so wise, you're so... simple." Yeah, we're simple, fucker. We're simply going to destroy you." pg. 197
So immersive, so informative about some aspects of Indian culture (not to mention the food!!!! Don't read this while hungry), you are transported to the streets of Delhi and the Terai forest. And everywhere in between, places populated by every sort of person of every social class. It's enveloping. If you read books to be transported to different places, this will deliver.
Now, besides the warnings I gave about content (very brutal), I must say it's not filled with characters you are going to be rooting for. There are only two 'good' characters in this book, and I use the term 'good' rather loosely considering what goes on in this novel. They are Don't expect romance. Don't expect heroes or heroines. Don't expect someone to do the right thing... no one does the right thing and after a time even the 'right thing' becomes unclear. Do not read this for happy endings, love, goodness, kindness, triumph over evil or any of that sort of thing. This isn't that kind of book.
"Everyone can win here. We romanticize poverty too much. India doesn't need to be this way. We can raise everyone up." pg. 246
Kapoor's talent is in weaving storylines together. The book is long - 544 pages - and it's very twisty, backstabby, and complex. You will read the whole first part - 171 pages - without really grasping what is going on. You will think you know! You will think you know the story! You will think you know where Kapoor is taking you. I assure you, you do not. Because on page 175 Part Two begins and you realize Kapoor is taking you IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTION. Wow, ah. You try to wrap your mind around it. All you can do is hang on for the ride.
Money's a fucking curse, he said. It cuts out all the hard work. Before, you had to be kind or funny or fun. Interesting, intelligent. You had to take the time to know people. You had solidarity with them. Then you're rich. It annihilates everything. Everyone is nice to you. Everyone wants you there. You're the most popular person in the room. It's so easy to be charming when you're rich. Everyone laughs at your jokes, hangs on your word. You forget and think it's about you. then sometimes you go somewhere and you don't spend, and it's so miserable, it's so horrible to go back to the drawing board, and you've forgotten how to earn someone's trust or love, and you know it's easier with a shortcut or two, so you bring out the cash in the end, the wad, the clip, the card, and the thrill of it is greater, because they didn't know, and now they do. You're rich. You're in charge. They love you. Money's a fucking curse. pg. 257
That's not to say Kapoor is a detailed, pretty, poetic writer - she really isn't. She's not like Elif Shafak or someone of her ilk whom you read and go, "Wow, this writing is so poetic and beautiful." Kapoor is more like Sara Gran. Brisk, muscular. Not sentimental nor prone to poetic descriptions of things. It's a style - one I quite like. She gets to the point and then she brutally forges ahead. She doesn't linger, she doesn't write long descriptions or talk about people's feelings. She's blunt.
As a personal note, I couldn't understand Neda AT ALL in this book. I found Sunny SO DISGUSTING and could not for the life of me understand what she saw in him. Blergh.
She kept waiting for the terrible surprise. She didn't know when it would be. A visit from the cops. A visit from a goon. A phone call just like in the movies: I know what you did. I know what you did. Meet me here. Bring money there. Talk and you're dead. pg. 308
TL;DR This isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. A long, brutal book about the mob which indulges itself in every kind of filth - it is called AGE OF VICE, after all. If you do not think you can deal with the content warnings I included, skip this. It's not going to sugarcoat things or give you a hero or give you the happy ending you want. But if you want a gripping, immersive book that will have you abandoning hours of each day to reading JUST ONE MORE PAGE, then this is going to be for you. Recommended, with caveats. The book is deeply fucked-up, please be prepared for that.
RELATED:
Any Bollywood movie about organized crime.
The Godfather
Unleashed (2005) starring Jet Li
The Given Day, Live by Night, and World Gone By by Dennis Lehane
He pisses long and hard, a malevolent stream of raw malice, pushing each palm to the glass, head raised in a silent scream, watching his life go down the drain. pg. 479
NAMES IN THIS BOOK
This book was good. It's smart, it's well put-together, it's addicting. You won't want to put it down. You have to know what happens. You have to see what happens next.
It's also the first read published in 2023 for me!
It all happens in a matter of seconds.
Of the three men, the gunman dies first. He's the one reaching for the bag, the one taking his eye off their prey. All Ajay needs is instinct, the split-second understanding that the gun is no longer in the back of his head but pointed at the sky. Ajay spins away. He doesn't think how he might die, how his brains may explode and splatter the earth. He spins and grabs the gunman's wrist and the gun goes off as they fall to the ground. He is the first to react. Thank Eli for that, all those hours of dry, mechanical training. But who to thank for the rage? Sunny? His mother? They fall and Ajay snaps the gunman's arm. The machete goon is already coming at him. But something about the sound of the arm bone cracking makes him come half-heartedly, and that's all Ajay needs to leap forward and take him down, pin the machete hand with his knee and smash the goon repeatedly in the face. Grab the goon's head in his hands and smash it against the dirt. Take the machete and slit his throat. Take the machete and hack at the head of the gunman with the shattered arm. When Ajay turns, panting, his eyes a film of blood, Vipin Tyagi is rooted to the spot, his own eyes wide, jaw agape. "I can take you to them, brother!" Vipin cries. But Ajay doesn't care anymore. The red mist has fallen. He strides toward Vipin, raises the blade, and brings it down into Vipin's face. pg. 109
That being said, it's a brutal, dark, grim book. Do not expect any happiness here.
It's about the Indian mob. Long story short: basically that's it. And if you are looking for a happy mob story, it doesn't exist. Baffles me how many mafioso romance novels are being written now... there's nothing romantic about being in organized crime. Nothing. NOTHING.
As to be expected in a novel based in this... lifestyle... there is tons of filth in here. Rape, m/m rape, child rape, gang rape, corruption, slavery, child slavery, filth, sexual slavery, torture, killing of infants, murder, suicide,... sex trafficking. Not sure if sex trafficking was covered by 'sexual slavery' or not, but there it is. Does this list exhaust you? Depress you? You might want to check your headspace before diving into this book. Kapoor doesn't spare you, she will not have mercy on you. Don't expect any grace here.
This book will absolutely immerse you in India. You will smell, breathe, taste, see India in front of you. It's also quite addictive. It kind of reminds me of those pot-boilers that American woman wrote in the '80s (unrelated to India). I can't remember her name! They were so dramatic but very page-turning. Something was always happening to make you say, "One more chapter!"
Then he sees the gun and remembers.
He is his own destroyer.
He has come to erase the wound. pg. 105
That's not to demean Kapoor's talent at all. She's smart. She writes with a deft knowledge and a dry, muscular style. It's going to be hugely appealing to men, I can see tons of male readers loving this novel. There's so much about this novel that is going to hit home with a masculine audience. An impoverished boy dragging himself up from the gutter by his bloody knuckles, turning into a mob man and a trained killer. A rich, petulant mob prince revolting against his evil daddy but at the same time knowing he can never make it without daddy's power and money. A cool, reckless, beautiful journalist who likes to skate the edge getting romantically involved with a man she knows she shouldn't. It's very cinematic, it's dramatic, it's India.
"Take a look at your own backyard. Study your history, man. You people looted us, took everything, stole our treasures. Now you look at us and say, "You're so spiritual, you have so much wisdom, you're so wise, you're so... simple." Yeah, we're simple, fucker. We're simply going to destroy you." pg. 197
So immersive, so informative about some aspects of Indian culture (not to mention the food!!!! Don't read this while hungry), you are transported to the streets of Delhi and the Terai forest. And everywhere in between, places populated by every sort of person of every social class. It's enveloping. If you read books to be transported to different places, this will deliver.
Now, besides the warnings I gave about content (very brutal), I must say it's not filled with characters you are going to be rooting for. There are only two 'good' characters in this book, and I use the term 'good' rather loosely considering what goes on in this novel. They are Don't expect romance. Don't expect heroes or heroines. Don't expect someone to do the right thing... no one does the right thing and after a time even the 'right thing' becomes unclear. Do not read this for happy endings, love, goodness, kindness, triumph over evil or any of that sort of thing. This isn't that kind of book.
"Everyone can win here. We romanticize poverty too much. India doesn't need to be this way. We can raise everyone up." pg. 246
Kapoor's talent is in weaving storylines together. The book is long - 544 pages - and it's very twisty, backstabby, and complex. You will read the whole first part - 171 pages - without really grasping what is going on. You will think you know! You will think you know the story! You will think you know where Kapoor is taking you. I assure you, you do not. Because on page 175 Part Two begins and you realize Kapoor is taking you IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTION. Wow, ah. You try to wrap your mind around it. All you can do is hang on for the ride.
Money's a fucking curse, he said. It cuts out all the hard work. Before, you had to be kind or funny or fun. Interesting, intelligent. You had to take the time to know people. You had solidarity with them. Then you're rich. It annihilates everything. Everyone is nice to you. Everyone wants you there. You're the most popular person in the room. It's so easy to be charming when you're rich. Everyone laughs at your jokes, hangs on your word. You forget and think it's about you. then sometimes you go somewhere and you don't spend, and it's so miserable, it's so horrible to go back to the drawing board, and you've forgotten how to earn someone's trust or love, and you know it's easier with a shortcut or two, so you bring out the cash in the end, the wad, the clip, the card, and the thrill of it is greater, because they didn't know, and now they do. You're rich. You're in charge. They love you. Money's a fucking curse. pg. 257
That's not to say Kapoor is a detailed, pretty, poetic writer - she really isn't. She's not like Elif Shafak or someone of her ilk whom you read and go, "Wow, this writing is so poetic and beautiful." Kapoor is more like Sara Gran. Brisk, muscular. Not sentimental nor prone to poetic descriptions of things. It's a style - one I quite like. She gets to the point and then she brutally forges ahead. She doesn't linger, she doesn't write long descriptions or talk about people's feelings. She's blunt.
As a personal note, I couldn't understand Neda AT ALL in this book. I found Sunny SO DISGUSTING and could not for the life of me understand what she saw in him. Blergh.
She kept waiting for the terrible surprise. She didn't know when it would be. A visit from the cops. A visit from a goon. A phone call just like in the movies: I know what you did. I know what you did. Meet me here. Bring money there. Talk and you're dead. pg. 308
TL;DR This isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. A long, brutal book about the mob which indulges itself in every kind of filth - it is called AGE OF VICE, after all. If you do not think you can deal with the content warnings I included, skip this. It's not going to sugarcoat things or give you a hero or give you the happy ending you want. But if you want a gripping, immersive book that will have you abandoning hours of each day to reading JUST ONE MORE PAGE, then this is going to be for you. Recommended, with caveats. The book is deeply fucked-up, please be prepared for that.
RELATED:
Any Bollywood movie about organized crime.
The Godfather
Unleashed (2005) starring Jet Li
The Given Day, Live by Night, and World Gone By by Dennis Lehane
He pisses long and hard, a malevolent stream of raw malice, pushing each palm to the glass, head raised in a silent scream, watching his life go down the drain. pg. 479
NAMES IN THIS BOOK
January 18, 2023
New Delhi, 3 am. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and kills five people..
I buddy read this book with a book friend. She is amazing and I’m so glad we got to read another book together. This was a heavy read and I found myself thinking about what I read long after. There was a-lot of Indian terminology that my friend was able to translate words and phrases as well as put many things into perspective that completely changed my view of the story. It was so different from everything I normally read but I ended up enjoying it!
A rich man’s car is found at the scene but upon further inspection the driver is not a rich man but a servant who can’t remember events leading up to the accident. This is just the beginning. Sunny is a carefree player who tries to outdue his gangster father at every opportunity. Neda is a journalist caught between the luxurious life she’s becoming apart of and what is right. Anjay is the loyal servant who worked his way up through the ranks. These three people and their stories are intertwined through their association with the Wadia crime family.
Age of Vice is a book of gangsters, forbidden love, fake friendships and the consequences of it all. Definitely a must read book of 2023!
Age of Vice is available now.
I buddy read this book with a book friend. She is amazing and I’m so glad we got to read another book together. This was a heavy read and I found myself thinking about what I read long after. There was a-lot of Indian terminology that my friend was able to translate words and phrases as well as put many things into perspective that completely changed my view of the story. It was so different from everything I normally read but I ended up enjoying it!
A rich man’s car is found at the scene but upon further inspection the driver is not a rich man but a servant who can’t remember events leading up to the accident. This is just the beginning. Sunny is a carefree player who tries to outdue his gangster father at every opportunity. Neda is a journalist caught between the luxurious life she’s becoming apart of and what is right. Anjay is the loyal servant who worked his way up through the ranks. These three people and their stories are intertwined through their association with the Wadia crime family.
Age of Vice is a book of gangsters, forbidden love, fake friendships and the consequences of it all. Definitely a must read book of 2023!
Age of Vice is available now.
August 1, 2023
Wow, this was great! I was hesitant at first, because hyped up books are, more often than not, a bit of a disappointment for me. Thrilled to say this was not the case here. It’s a long read, but I could not put it down! Books set in India always intrigue me, and this one brought a lot to the table - culture, mystery, relationships, intrigue. Highly recommend!
January 12, 2023
This saga about an Indian crime family definitely held my interest. The interaction of classes in Indian society was of more interest to me than the violence and other criminal goings on. The Dickensian story of Ajay, who was sold into slavery by his mother, was certainly the most compelling part of the book. He eventually found employment with Sunny, the weak, narcissistic, immature, selfish, irresponsible, debauched son of a mob boss, and he gradually assumed more responsibility. He was finally called upon to take the blame for a fatal accident. The third character of the book is Neda, Sunny’s lover. I thought she was the least interesting character and I wound up skimming her chapters. Sunny was such a waste of space that I didn’t want to spend time with a woman who would moon over him. After I finished the book I learned that this is the first book of a trilogy. Even though the last quarter of the book was sort of messy, I will probably read the next installment.
January 31, 2023
Welcome to my first disappointment of the year.
For the first four hundred pages or so, I was hooked. I devoured this door stopper in three days, and was ready to sing its praise left and right. The nuanced exploration of power struggles and politics in North India from the perspective of the members of a mafia clan captivated me completely, and Kapoor’s fast paced, immersive writing pushed me to turn the pages until the small hours of the night.
The author perfectly portrays the social dynamics and structural inequalities that force the poor and marginalized into vulnerable positions, while never losing empathy for those who climbed the social ladder and ended up on the side of the privileged. This book provides a scathing critique of neoliberal capitalism and the false promises it carries—above all, that of bringing progress and wealth to developing countries. Age of Vice is as much a socio-political novel as it is a thriller: police violence, political corruption, and wealth inequality are at the forefront of the narrative, and Kapoor doesn’t shy away from showing the most brutal side of this ruthless but all too realistic world.
I fell in love with the characters, who are beautifully rendered in their complexity and moral ambiguity. Even Sunny, the spoiled, hot headed heir to the largest mafia clan in Delhi, ends up being somehow sympathetic despite his often despicable behavior. There is an air of Greek tragedy to many of these characters, a sense that their fate was sealed before they even stepped on the scene; their family, status, and social standing force them down a path that they wouldn’t have chosen themselves, but are compelled to take nonetheless.
Why am I disappointed, then?
Because everything I loved about this book completely fell apart in the last hundred pages. Slight spoilers below.
The plot took an abrupt turn all of a sudden, shifting to the perspective of a new character who retained nothing of the previous narrators’ complexities and felt very much like a one-dimensional deus ex machina. One of my least favorite tropes is the introduction of random supernatural elements in an otherwise realistic story, especially when it’s done towards the end and for seemingly no reason. From that point on, the book took a nosedive into complete, over the top bleakness and despair. It felt like the author was trying too hard to make her already dark novel even darker and edgier. Just to give you an idea: at one point a character goes to the bathroom, and his piss is described as “a malevolent stream of raw malice”. Come on.
This coupled with the excessive misogyny, rape, and drug use really hampered my enjoyment of the final section. I also disliked that the plot shifted away from social commentary and into fight-the-supervillain kind of territory. It didn’t help that the book (which is apparently the first in a series, even though it wasn’t advertised as such) ended in a cliffhanger that didn’t wrap up any of the narrative threads.
For the first four hundred pages or so, I was hooked. I devoured this door stopper in three days, and was ready to sing its praise left and right. The nuanced exploration of power struggles and politics in North India from the perspective of the members of a mafia clan captivated me completely, and Kapoor’s fast paced, immersive writing pushed me to turn the pages until the small hours of the night.
The author perfectly portrays the social dynamics and structural inequalities that force the poor and marginalized into vulnerable positions, while never losing empathy for those who climbed the social ladder and ended up on the side of the privileged. This book provides a scathing critique of neoliberal capitalism and the false promises it carries—above all, that of bringing progress and wealth to developing countries. Age of Vice is as much a socio-political novel as it is a thriller: police violence, political corruption, and wealth inequality are at the forefront of the narrative, and Kapoor doesn’t shy away from showing the most brutal side of this ruthless but all too realistic world.
I fell in love with the characters, who are beautifully rendered in their complexity and moral ambiguity. Even Sunny, the spoiled, hot headed heir to the largest mafia clan in Delhi, ends up being somehow sympathetic despite his often despicable behavior. There is an air of Greek tragedy to many of these characters, a sense that their fate was sealed before they even stepped on the scene; their family, status, and social standing force them down a path that they wouldn’t have chosen themselves, but are compelled to take nonetheless.
Why am I disappointed, then?
Because everything I loved about this book completely fell apart in the last hundred pages. Slight spoilers below.
The plot took an abrupt turn all of a sudden, shifting to the perspective of a new character who retained nothing of the previous narrators’ complexities and felt very much like a one-dimensional deus ex machina. One of my least favorite tropes is the introduction of random supernatural elements in an otherwise realistic story, especially when it’s done towards the end and for seemingly no reason. From that point on, the book took a nosedive into complete, over the top bleakness and despair. It felt like the author was trying too hard to make her already dark novel even darker and edgier. Just to give you an idea: at one point a character goes to the bathroom, and his piss is described as “a malevolent stream of raw malice”. Come on.
This coupled with the excessive misogyny, rape, and drug use really hampered my enjoyment of the final section. I also disliked that the plot shifted away from social commentary and into fight-the-supervillain kind of territory. It didn’t help that the book (which is apparently the first in a series, even though it wasn’t advertised as such) ended in a cliffhanger that didn’t wrap up any of the narrative threads.
June 4, 2023
I hate to write negative reviews, but Age of Vice is a book I wish I had never read.
Age of Vice is deceptive –– the cover is eye catching, the opening is stimulating, mysterious, filled with all those Dickensian hard times we can appreciate!
But the story deteriorates shortly after it begins.
Age of Vice is a convoluted story centered around three characters: Ajay, Sunny Wadia, and Neda. The way this story is told is part of the problem, and I have to fault Kapoor's editors for not making her fix this.
The novel is split between these three perspectives, but the chunks of each narrative are HUGE.
We spend the first part of the novel with Ajay. And as soon as I am truly invested in his story, his voice, his PAIN, we are pulled away and thrusted into the head of someone else. It was completely jarring. Add to this the fact this new character is not Ajay, Sunny, or Neda, but is someone heretofore unknown, and it is disorienting. From here we spend a lot of nothing time with Neda, focusing on how she falls in love with Sunny, which is neither convincing nor interesting. It reads disingenuous and toxic.
Once we get to Sunny's chapters, things fall apart. There is no semblance of pacing from here on. It is completely disjointed. Add to this the fact Sonny is completely unlikeable and it becomes unbearable. There is a very incoherent hours long chapter voiced by yet ANOTHER heretofore unknown character that is both agonizingly brutal and boring! Then we have the ending, that focuses back on the only character I liked, Ajay, but the resolution is not exciting and did not validate my experience of spending nearly TWENTY hours listening to the audiobook.
This book is 500 pages long. This is a trilogy! I cannot listen or read two more books of comparable length about these characters in the style Kapoor writes in.
I believe Kapoor needed to completely rework this story. It has promise, but the construction is flawed, to the point that the entire narrative collapses and is for me, not salvageable.
Another big problem is that most of the novel is TELLING, and not SHOWING. most of it focuses on the same event from different perspectives. This gets tedious fast.
Be aware if you do try to read this: The violence is horrific. There are rape scenes.
Odious characters, odious writing, what I can only assume is performative violence for shock value, and I just can't rate this higher than two stars.
I will not be continuing with the series.
Stephen King said that aspiring novelists should read this... That sounds promising, right?
Prepare for disappointment. If anything, this has shown me many things not to do.
Age of Vice is deceptive –– the cover is eye catching, the opening is stimulating, mysterious, filled with all those Dickensian hard times we can appreciate!
But the story deteriorates shortly after it begins.
Age of Vice is a convoluted story centered around three characters: Ajay, Sunny Wadia, and Neda. The way this story is told is part of the problem, and I have to fault Kapoor's editors for not making her fix this.
The novel is split between these three perspectives, but the chunks of each narrative are HUGE.
We spend the first part of the novel with Ajay. And as soon as I am truly invested in his story, his voice, his PAIN, we are pulled away and thrusted into the head of someone else. It was completely jarring. Add to this the fact this new character is not Ajay, Sunny, or Neda, but is someone heretofore unknown, and it is disorienting. From here we spend a lot of nothing time with Neda, focusing on how she falls in love with Sunny, which is neither convincing nor interesting. It reads disingenuous and toxic.
Once we get to Sunny's chapters, things fall apart. There is no semblance of pacing from here on. It is completely disjointed. Add to this the fact Sonny is completely unlikeable and it becomes unbearable. There is a very incoherent hours long chapter voiced by yet ANOTHER heretofore unknown character that is both agonizingly brutal and boring! Then we have the ending, that focuses back on the only character I liked, Ajay, but the resolution is not exciting and did not validate my experience of spending nearly TWENTY hours listening to the audiobook.
This book is 500 pages long. This is a trilogy! I cannot listen or read two more books of comparable length about these characters in the style Kapoor writes in.
I believe Kapoor needed to completely rework this story. It has promise, but the construction is flawed, to the point that the entire narrative collapses and is for me, not salvageable.
Another big problem is that most of the novel is TELLING, and not SHOWING. most of it focuses on the same event from different perspectives. This gets tedious fast.
Be aware if you do try to read this: The violence is horrific. There are rape scenes.
Odious characters, odious writing, what I can only assume is performative violence for shock value, and I just can't rate this higher than two stars.
I will not be continuing with the series.
Stephen King said that aspiring novelists should read this... That sounds promising, right?
Prepare for disappointment. If anything, this has shown me many things not to do.
January 16, 2023
This crime drama reminded me of The Sopranos and The Godfather in terms of violence, sexual exploits, language, and the significance of family. Deepti Kapoor is a gifted writer, and I was drawn into Ajay's narrative immediately. However, as the book progressed, I started feeling disconnected to the story. I found myself growing numb to the litany of drunk benders, lines of cocaine, murder, manipulation, and betrayal. I needed a scrap of hope to balance out the grimness. Without it, the length of the novel wore me down.
Thanks to @libro.fm, I listed to the audiobook. The narration was excellent.
Thanks to @libro.fm, I listed to the audiobook. The narration was excellent.
January 9, 2023
I made myself finish this book. I don't know why. Maybe because I was so excited to have a book over 500 pages to read. There was so much hype about this book. I questioned myself about every 10 pages...why am I reading this? Why do I continue? I hated it. I honestly, I hated it. I should not have wasted an entire 6 days on this book. I should have thrown in the towel. I don't recommend it.
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