Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity

by Katherine Boo

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE

“Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care.”—People

“A tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.”—Judges, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award 

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • O: The Oprah Magazine • USA Today • New York • The Miami Herald • San Francisco Chronicle • Newsday

In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport.

As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi’s “most-everything girl,” might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. 

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds—and into the hearts of families impossible to forget. 

WINNER OF: The PEN Nonfiction Award • The Los Angeles Times Book Prize • The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award • The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • People • Entertainment Weekly • The Wall Street Journal • The Boston Globe • The Economist • Financial Times • Foreign Policy • The Seattle Times • The Nation • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Denver Post • Minneapolis Star Tribune • The Week • Kansas City Star • Slate •  Publishers Weekly

• ISBN10: 1400067553
• ISBN13: 9781400067558
• Publish Date: 7 February 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Random House Inc
• Format: Hardcover (Deckle Edge)
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781400067558

Reviews

[journalingirl]

Why I Read It?: It was the summer Nerdfighter book club book as chosen by John Green.

What I thought about it?:

It was a very interesting book. BtBF tells the story of the citizens of a slum in Mumbai. Even though it was fact, it read a lot like fiction, which made it very enjoyable. It’s sometimes hard to believe that what happened there is true. The story is quite sad, though, with no superheroes swooping in to save the residents of Annawadi, but that’s life. It’s beautifully written and you can tell that Boo really got into the heads of her subjects. The storyline is compelling and my only drawback is that it took me awhile to read. Still, it was worth it.

[Beth C.]

When I reserved this book at the library, it was because I was curious and it sounded good. As I read, I was convinced I was reading a novel - I truly had no idea that this is non-fiction. It's an excellent book that deals with problems and emotions and issues we all have, but on a much different scale than anything most of us could ever imagine. It's a hard book to read because it details just how much we tend to put aside those we see as poor or beneath our notice. And yet there is a certain hope that exists just under the surface - the hope that even just today, it might get better. Only people with hope, no matter how small a sliver it might be, would be as creative in their problem-solving as those in the slums of Mumbai.

This book is also an indictment of any government that does not help take care of its people. Like it or not, government exists for a reason, and when it favors the wealthy and ignores the poor, allowing wealth distribution to become so lopsided, then that government is doing itself no favors.

It's not often that a book so well-reviewed as this one can truly live up to the bar set so high, but this one does. It's beautiful and heart-breaking in equal measure. I'm glad I took the chance...