Behind the Beautiful Forevers
by Katherine Boo
4 stars
Katherine Boo is a very brave woman. Her passion for reporting on poverty led her to live in Annawadi, a slum in the shadow of the Mumbai airport in India. Over the course of nearly 2 ½ years, she followed the residents of Annawadi and recorded their amazing and terrifying lives. Behind the Beautiful Forevers is her narrative non-fiction account taken from hours of recorded interviews. I listened to this book as a downloadable audiobook. It is told from the perspective of several key residents of Annawadi, and the narrator does an excellent job differentiating each of their voices. I had to continually remind myself that the people in this book were real…that the terrifying situations and their struggles for success actually happened while I was living easy in the suburbs. The lives of the Annawadi residents are astonishing and heartbreaking with a dash of pluckiness thrown in. I wish Boo would do a follow-up so we can find out how Abdul, Asha, Manju, and the others are faring in 2017. A fabulous and eye opening read!
Read-alikes
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance
$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn J. Edin & H. Luke Shaefer
