A review by sarahmatthews
Boundary Road by Ami Rao

emotional tense medium-paced

Boundary Road by Ami Rao

Read as ebook using a mix of Braille and text-to-speech

 Everything With Words

Pub. 2023, 239pp

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I knew I was going to read this one as soon as I found out it’s about a bus journey through London. As much as I hated my various bus commutes many years ago I did at least enjoy the opportunity to indulge in a bit of people watching and the odd bit of eavesdropping, curious about all the many lives around me. So this book gave me a slice of that nostalgia!

Aron has just started a new job and is heading home on the No. 13 bus from Victoria to Boundary Road. He’s genuinely interested in other people’s lives and is an easy stranger to pass a few stops with. He takes the best seat on the bus – top left corner – and spends the ride pondering his life up to now and the possibilities for the future. His reflections on his early hopes as a talented footballer are woven in and we learn more about his family, his father’s arrival in England and struggles with alcohol, his grandmother Yvonne and mother Carol. 

In the present we meet all kinds of characters as he travels including a man who shares the story of his first love and is persuaded to visit Aron’s shop for some new clothes in a charming accidental way, and a pregnant woman carrying twins. He’s on a high from his first day at work which has given him a renewed optimism after a dark period and this could explain why he’s so open with people.

Early on a young woman enters who Aron spots before she even gets on as she’s dressed unusually, and we suspect she’ll play a larger role later on.

We learn this is Nora as the perspective shifts in the secon part of the novel. I was so invested in Aron’s story that I didn’t connect quite so well with Nora, though she meets some interesting people including an architect who shares a story about his surprising reaction to a client’s painting, and also reflects on her own upbringing, further exploring the diversity of London’s population. I enjoyed the sharp observations from her perspective concerning the reaction to Aron:

“The elderly white couple on the seats two rows behind them turn their heads around anxiously, eyes darting here and there.two black youths fist-bumping directly in front of them with only one row in between. The woman… turns around and tries to catch Nora’s eye. It is a plea of sorts, a plea, as Nora understands, seeking solidarity. Nora pointedly looks away in these matters, her loyalty is unwavering.”

The final section is gripping and brilliantly written. This is a book with a hard-hitting message and I thought it delivers it very successfully.

i red this for Karen and Lizzy’s #ReadIndies month