The Association of Small Bombs is a book of compelling moments, well written imagery, and strong individual scenes but it does not have a well structured overarching plot, and some important characters seem to have truncated or nonexistent arcs. The only real connective tissue of the story, the glue holding everything together, is Mansoor, the survivor of the 1996 bomb who is later (view spoiler)[ arrested and imprisoned as an accomplice to the 2003 bombing committed his friend Ayub (hide spoiler)]. Taken as a whole, his story is a tragic gut punch, though I had quibbles with how quickly Mahajan writes the final part of his story (he tries to cover way too much ground in about 10 pages of text). 
 Sadly, I found Shockie and Ayub, (view spoiler)[ the terrorists behind the "associated small bombs" in 1996 and 2003 respectively (hide spoiler)] dull characters. I felt at such a remove from both of them and their chapters were a chore. (view spoiler)[ I am very open to reading books that get into the mind of terrorists. I am even open as a reader to feeling some level of empathy for a terrorist character, but I felt like with the transformation of Ayub chapters Mahajan was just checking off boxes on a checklist and writing with such remove that I couldn't get invested (hide spoiler)]. Vikas and Deepa, the parents of Mansoor's slain friends, were potentially interesting characters but they're grafted onto the story in a very ungainly way. The books opens on their pain at the loss of their sons, then they're dropped completely from the story as we follow other characters, then periodically re-inserted in seemingly random fashion. I'm also not convinced either of them had much of a journey as a character despite the strength of some of their scenes. 
 I think this is book where the author's reach exceeds his grasp. A lot of Mahajan's writing is quite striking and thought provoking but I also couldn't shake the feeling that there was something missing from this as I was reading it.