OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SUBJECT OF A SIX-PART SUPER SOUL PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY OPRAH WINFREY From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love ...

Covenant of Water was not a bad book, but it wasn't a great one either. Nonetheless, Verghese had some good stories in this multigenerational tale of a family cursed by an aversion to water. There were parts that most of us really enjoyed reading, notably how the matriarch of the family (Big Ammachi) goes from pre-teen bride to respected grandmother and how her son helps a doctor save a baby from choking to death. There are lots of pretty scenes in the book and Verghese gave us some quite interesting characters that we enjoyed reading about. So why didn't we love it? One issue was that for all the good characters and scenes, there were long stretches with characters we didn't believe or didn't like. Big Ammachi was wonderful; Phillipose was unreadably pathetic. Digby was an incredible depiction of an ex-pat; Lenin was a dumb sketch of a fanatic that made no sense. Another issue was the tone shift. At the heart of the book is an idea of progress, that things that seem cursed can actually be understood and treated. This is most directly depicted in the Condition the main family has around water, which is eventually explained as a neurological disorder, but is also reflected in the depictions of leprosy throughout the novel. This journey made thematic sense, but many of us felt the novel was stronger when the Curse was mystical and felt that it lost something as things became explained. Finally, there were just some bad choices in the plotting. Lenin punching his fist through his mother's womb was dumb, Elsie's romance with Digby felt artificial, and Philipose just didn't hold together as a character between his early determination to adventure and his eventually retreat to the estate. The themes of progress and family were very clear, but also quite thin and so despite the length of the novel, we really didn't have much to talk about. Ultimately, it's not a bad book; it's just not a deep one. Think of it as an elevated beach read -- you'll enjoy the setting and some of the characters you meet along the way, but nothing here is going to blow your mind.