Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity in DC Public Library

Feb 27, 2020 Bobbie Weaver rated it really liked it

The many reviews of this book on GR reflect much of what I felt while listening to the story: disgusted, enraged, and not very hopeful about the pervasive poverty, inequality, racism, and corruption in India. I am not blind to the fact that non-Americans must register similar feelings about American society and its entrenched economic, racial, and political issues when they read narratives like Bryan Stephenson’s Just Mercy or Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities.

Never having been to India or s ...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Noralo rated it really liked it

Relentlessly heavy, but you can't fault it for that, only feel guilty for being able to walk away.

I did not know this was nonfiction until I got to goodreads just now. Might have seen it through a different lens had I known, but maybe it's a testament to Boo's writing that it seemed to follow a plot without being sentimental.

Good writing, great meditation on slumlife in Mumbai and the implications and backstory of eradicating slums. Boo wrote in her Author's Note that the narratives she saw abou ...more

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Mar 31, 2015 Sarah rated it it was amazing

So glad I finally read this book. People are always asking for it at the Library, and now I know why. Reads like fiction, a fascinating look at people who are so poor it is beyond imagining.

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