Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity -

Katherin Boo is an aclaimed reporter for "The New Yorker" and "The Washington Post." She took her excellent reporter's skills into an immensely poor slum area of Mumbai, India, to document how the global economy is affecting the residents of these unseen places. This particular place is called Annawadi and is located near the Mumbai International Airport, but behind walls that separate the area from the highway. On these walls were written the words "beautiful forever beautiful forever beautiful." thus the title of the book.

It is hard to describe how fascinating I found the book to be. It is terribly sad, horrifying in some cases, and yet peopled with individuals who keep on trying despite tremendous odds against them. They struggle everyday just to maintain the life they have. Katherine Boo keeps herself out of the book and in many places her writing skills make it feel like a well written novel - the people and places are so well described. I would definitely recommend the book. It would be wonderful for book group discussions too