This San Francisco Chronicle story is a fine parody of a South Asian book review:

Siddharth Shanghvi

Growing up in Bombay, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi wasn’t a typical Indian schoolboy. Sensitive, precocious, exotically beautiful with eyes the color of nutmeg… His refuge was… a fragrant bakul tree… [Link]

His mehndi-tinged hair swoops over the sandalwood fragrance of his almond-shaped eyelids… his elephantine fingernails cry ‘koo-oo-oo! koo-oo-oo!’ like the koyal as they pluck at the first mangoes of spring.

Slap a sari on the border, another desi lit review’s in the can.

The fatuous author fawns over a dish so basic, it’s served to sick people. It’s like drooling over très exotique macaroni ‘n cheese:

“Do you like the khicadi?” he asks, referring to the latest dish to appear. “It’s rice and lentils boiled together, with a bit of masala.” It’s delicious, subtle… [Link]

I couldn’t tell whether the journalist wanted to review him or jump him (and that’s not a comment on sexuality, it’s a comment on professionalism):

… the combination of rich food, wine and nonstop chatter have exhausted him and turned his large brown eyes into droopy wet pools… [Link]

I haven’t read The Last Song of Dusk, but Kitabkhana once posted a very entertaining review:

… a passage where Dr Hariharan starts to beat his wife: “This went on with merciless delight–thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash–until with a pregnant woman’s ferocious instinct for survival, Mrs Hariharan fought back. Kicking, biting, clawing, kicking, biting, clawing, kicking, biting, clawing, kicking, biting, clawing, kicking, biting, clawing, kicking, biting, clawing, kicking, biting, clawing, kicking, biting, clawing, kicking, biting, clawing: as much as a woman with an infant stored in her womb could.”

… [Shanghvi] never had an editor… more than breathe on his manuscript for two seconds. Because any editor worth his or her salt would have “Begged him to delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete…” [Link]

(via Sepia Mutiny)

Update: Kitabkhana turns the review into death by snarklink.

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