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A review by ridgewaygirl
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
3.0
Lucky Boy tells the story of Ignacio, from his mother's journey from a dying Mexican village to Berkeley, California and her struggles to make a life for herself as an undocumented immigrant and housekeeper/nanny, to how he came to live with Kavya and Rishi Reddy, an Indian American couple and what happened to him and to the people involved in raising him.
This is a novel with a message. It's well-researched, but the writing is only serviceable and instead of just telling a story, Sekaran is intent on getting a message across. It's not a great book, although it's not a bad one, either. It's just so intent on sending a message about the inhumanity in how we treat undocumented immigrants that even as I agreed with her whole-heartedly, and could clearly see that she'd spent time researching -- each element of Soli's story was, as they say, ripped from the headlines -- but the heavy-handedness, as well as how Soli was never fully fleshed out as a character detracted from the book. Kavya and her life in an affluent Indian American culture felt real and interesting and there were descriptions of her interactions with her mother, for example, where the novel gained a liveliness that was very enjoyable to read about. I would really like to read a novel by this author set entirely within this world she clearly knows and understands.
This is a novel with a message. It's well-researched, but the writing is only serviceable and instead of just telling a story, Sekaran is intent on getting a message across. It's not a great book, although it's not a bad one, either. It's just so intent on sending a message about the inhumanity in how we treat undocumented immigrants that even as I agreed with her whole-heartedly, and could clearly see that she'd spent time researching -- each element of Soli's story was, as they say, ripped from the headlines -- but the heavy-handedness, as well as how Soli was never fully fleshed out as a character detracted from the book. Kavya and her life in an affluent Indian American culture felt real and interesting and there were descriptions of her interactions with her mother, for example, where the novel gained a liveliness that was very enjoyable to read about. I would really like to read a novel by this author set entirely within this world she clearly knows and understands.