Review: A People's History of Heaven
Title: A People’s History of Heaven
Author: Mathangi Subramanian
Release Date: March 19th, 2019
Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
Find it here: Goodreads – Amazon – B&N
Synopsis from Goodreads: Welcome to Heaven, a thirty-year-old slum hidden between brand-new high-rise apartment buildings and technology incubators in contemporary Bangalore, one of India's fastest-growing cities. In Heaven, you will come to know a community made up almost entirely of women, mothers and daughters who have been abandoned by their men when no male heir was produced. Living hand-to-mouth and constantly struggling against the city government who wants to bulldoze their homes and build yet more glass high-rises, these women, young and old, gladly support one another, sharing whatever they can. A People's History of Heaven centers on five best friends, girls who go to school together, a diverse group who love and accept one another unconditionally, pulling one another through crises and providing emotional, physical, and financial support. Together they wage war on the bulldozers that would bury their homes, and, ultimately, on the city that does not care what happens to them. This is a story about geography, history, and strength, about love and friendship, about fighting for the people and places we love--even if no one else knows they exist. Elegant, poetic, bursting with color, Mathangi Subramanian's novel is a moving and celebratory story of girls on the cusp of adulthood who find joy just in the basic act of living.
My Review: I struggled to get into this book a bit but once I did I found it to be a very moving story about the bonds of friendship between 5 teenage girls, each with very unique struggles and backgrounds. The crisis of the book is the slum where they live being torn down and their fight to save it but the heart of the story is each persons story and the way that society has played a role in that. The story definitely sheds light on the struggles of woman, and particularly poor women, in Indian society but it also shows us the heart and love of these people despite the struggles they face. Overall I enjoyed the book and look forward to seeing what this author does next.
*I received this book from Algonquin books in exchange for an honest review*