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I don't usually get all gushy over anything that's been written in the last 40 years or so, but I couldn't put this one down. The book describes the trials and hardships and yet more trials and hardships (there seem to be no positive experiences) of the residents of the Annawadi slum, "a stretch where new India and old India collided and made new India late."
The book reads like fiction: it is so very hard to believe that such a thoroughly corrupt system could exist in the current era of mobilit ...more
The book reads like fiction: it is so very hard to believe that such a thoroughly corrupt system could exist in the current era of mobilit ...more
Beautiful, tragic, intricate, and visceral. I feel like I want to see this book adapted into a film...and at the same time, don't think it could be done proper justice...
...also, I really wanna go to India. ...more
...also, I really wanna go to India. ...more
It's a riddle... and it's not
As heartbreaking as the individual lives that are depicted in this book are, even more striking is Boo's unblinking assessment of human nature. Toward the end of this painfully honest book, the author ponders why the poor of slums like the one she writes about simply don't rise up and mount an insurrection. Then she answers her own question:
"But the slum dwellers rarely got mad together.... Instead, powerless individuals blamed other powerless individuals for what t ...more
As heartbreaking as the individual lives that are depicted in this book are, even more striking is Boo's unblinking assessment of human nature. Toward the end of this painfully honest book, the author ponders why the poor of slums like the one she writes about simply don't rise up and mount an insurrection. Then she answers her own question:
"But the slum dwellers rarely got mad together.... Instead, powerless individuals blamed other powerless individuals for what t ...more
Behind the Beautiful Forevers tells the stories of residents of Annawadi, a slum just outside the Mumbai international airport and in close proximity of a number of luxury hotels. Outside the airport is a billboard advertising Italian floor tiles with the tagline, "beautiful forever, beautiful forever, beautiful forever." Just beyond this billboard lies the Annawadi slum, where residents fight for survival in a corrupt political and economic climate, many making their livings through trash colle
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Aug 06, 2012
Ching-In
marked it as to-read
Sep 29, 2012
Isabel
marked it as to-read
Oct 20, 2012
Jen
marked it as to-read
May 19, 2015
Rend
marked it as to-read
Feb 23, 2016
Brian
marked it as to-read
Jan 31, 2020
superawesomekt
marked it as bibliocurious
Oct 15, 2020
Rachel Shields Ebersole
marked it as to-read
Jul 13, 2024
Sivan
marked it as to-read-non-classics
