Reading Katherine Boo’s National Book Award winning Behind the Beautiful Forevers leaves one’s mind and heart shaken and changed. Her thick and intense description of people striving to survive a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport in India reads like a gripping novel that is all too real in its tale of poverty and depredation, of human frailty and strength. On every page you’ll find the makings of a tragedy but also glimmers of possibilities for surviving tragedy. And on every page you’ll learn from Boo’s unsentimental empathy and insight how to think with respect about the hard and complex condition of life under terrible stress. You’ll leave the book equipped with her deep insights into how people survive alongside one another in an era and place of tumultuous change. And you’ll leave amazed at the writer’s commitment to getting the story right by living within it and rendering it in pitch perfect prose.

—ALAN TANSMAN, Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, member of the 2016 On the Same Page faculty selection committee

Here are some representative quotations from student reviewers:

“The lyricism of Boo’s writing makes the stories of the residents of Annawadi ‘come alive’ in a way usually only seen with fiction. Without being polemical, it explores difficult topics and delivers a gripping appeal to the reader’s conscience. It’s impossible to ignore the empathy these stories provoke. It’s equally impossible to ignore our own complicity in the inequality that leaves some members of humanity behind even as the privileged soar to greater heights in our globalizing world.” (Adora Zvitak)

“The top strengths of this book were giving an in-depth insight to life in a Mumbai undercity without pulling any punches or sugarcoating anything. In addition, another top strength was how it changed point of view and give the different perspectives.” (Ivette Flores)

“The fact that it highlights the moral ambiguities and complications. It’s complex and heady and shows that not every issue is one sided.” (Brian Mason)

“It was great. Very interesting story lines that flesh out a history and a person, not just a face of poverty.” (Zelia Ziegler Hunt)

“Behind the Beautiful Forevers excels in most, if not all, aspects of literature. In a beautiful poetic writing style, Katherine Boo manages to transport the reader into a world that is unknown to many of us first-world citizens, teaching about slum life while still connecting the reader to her characters’ lives through emotion and drama. The amount of detail that she packs into this book is stunning; almost every sentence seems to include the results of on-site research.” (Naomi Primero)

“The writing is absolutely wonderful. The author’s descriptions of characters and scenes paint very vivid images in my mind while I read. The setting of the book is rich and the characters are unique and fascinating.” (Danielle Kenwood)