Meh. Not a bad story, but too superficially rendered for my taste.

Kavita, a poor village woman, has just given birth to an infant daughter she names Usha. Terrified that her husband will murder the daughter because she's a girl, she journeys to Mumbai to place Usha in an orphanage. Meanwhile, Somer and Krishnan, a California couple struggling with infertility, decide to adopt an Indian orphan and end up with Usha. The book follows the twists and turns in these characters' lives as Kavita and her family experience changes of location and fortune and Somer and Krishnan raise Usha (whom they call Asha) who eventually seeks her roots in India.

There were moments in this book which resonated and smacked of psychological complexity. Somer initially finds it difficult to bond with her new infant; Kavita comes to appreciate her husband despite his flaws; Kavita's husband eventually regrets and examines his zealousness to get rid of his infant daughter. But for the most part, the story was told in a way that seemed almost rushed as it spanned two decades. I didn't feel that I got to know any of the characters; the vicissitudes in their relationships and fortunes passed me by without my getting caught up in them. Where I often find myself complaining about the slow pacing in books, this was a case where the rapidity with which events unfolded precluded my feeling anything about them.

It wasn't a bad book, but the fact that it could have been so much better than it was made for a disappointing reading experience. Not to mention the high goodreads rating and Amazon's placing it on a list of 100 Best Books of 2010.