The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008)

I had high expectations after Liam's glowing review, but I was really not impressed by Adiga's writing style.

For some reason, it just felt forced, with good voice, but somehow over-polished.

It was perhaps that Adiga intended to shock or awe with his descriptions of Indian human rights violations. However I was not touched by his descriptions, or even disturbed by the murder scene.  Just not Heller's level, descriptively or emotively. 

I failed to develop any consistent relationship with the protagonist, and can't even remember his name now. "If you write, you must believe--in the truth and the worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is patronizing" (Strunk & White, The Elements of Style, 84). Perhaps Adiga did not trust me to accurately perceive the horrors of India, and because he denied me this trust, his premonition was accurate.