May Reading

My goal is to read 50 books by the end of the year. Although I am far ahead, this month was pitiful! I only read one book (although it was amazing). Finishing out my final exams, spending ten days with my best friend in my hometown, and then starting work all made for a chaotic month that left little time for reading.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

"In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human. ...Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. ...With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget."

This book was breathtaking. It was written in a style that reminded me of Khaled Hosseini (one of my favorite authors). In fact, I thought this book was fiction until I read the back cover about halfway through and realized that it was journalistic reporting.

Katherine Boo is brutally honest in her depictions of life in the Annawadi slum, but she also shares the stories of individuals in a way that does not victimize them. So many stories about poverty makes the reader simply feel bad for those who are trapped within that bitter cycle; it makes it audience pity a distant and faceless "them." And while Boo shows clearly how the human beings in her book are trapped in poverty and struggling to find any change at all, she also shows them as they are: strong, innovative, resilient, intelligent, courageous.

I strongly encourage anyone to read Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Excellent narrative. Five stars.

Next month, I need to get back on my reading! What are you reading right now?

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One year ago: Bwana Asifiwe
Two years ago: Shrunken Heads? Tattoos?
Three years ago: Where's Waldo? And Lucky wasn't so lucky after all...
Five years ago: Playing Hokey Pokey in Africa