Sanjena Sathian's Gold Diggers
So trying to explain this is going to be a lot: this book is about a young Indian-American boy, crushing on/friends with the Indian-American girl who lives catty-corner, when he discovers her mother makes her a magical lemonade infused with stolen golden jewelry, which gives her the ambitions/skills of its owner. So of course he drinks it. Things don’t go as planned, and ten years later he’s a cokehead avoiding working on his dissertation (this section didn’t work as well for me, because I’ve read enough books about messed up/depressed grad students) when the girl comes back into his life. I liked the touches of magical realism, and that the book touches on identity and family in interesting ways. It’s also really funny in parts. I have some thoughts about the whole outsider narrator looking at the central mother-daughter relationship, but haven’t totally decided where I’m landing on that. I might make my book club read this so I can discuss it with someone! (Now that I think of it, this would be a great selection for more literary minded book clubs. Lots of different things to talk about.) A-/B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.
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