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| Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal |
The families in this book read like any of the families that you would find at any immigrant Dominican social in New York City, Miami or Philadelphia; they are pot luck, the women, children and men are segregated, judging their friends, talking about how much you spent on something, braggin about your kids, drinking, talking about the old country and there is gossip galore.
This back story read like so many immigrant stories, the difference is in the narrator’s coming of age/coming out saga. It is indeed a story that will pull you in. It brings back all the memories of how when you are 12 every single thing is such a HUGE deal, how exciting it is to have the “cool kids” at school take in interest in you. All the angst of not yet being an adult, but knowing that sometimes you will be expected to act like one and at other times not. His journey to sexual discovery is both hilarious and devastating. They way that Rakesh Satyal handles the subject is wonderful.
The narrator, Kiran Sharma, is a 12 year old school isolated by his differences from his school mates, too ethnic, artistic, and girly? Isolated by the other Indian children in his parent’s social circle, too Americanized, girly, know-it all? And even from his own parents, they just don’t know what to make of him. The hilarity in which the story is told doesn’t take away any of the seriousness of Kiran’s plights. You will definitely have many laugh out loud moments, and when Kiran gets into another of his mishaps you will say “that is so Kiran”.
Kiran is most definitely misunderstood, as much as he practices the Language Arts has a lot of trouble communicating with the people around him. While the narrator is 12, it doesn’t read like a 12 year old book. This is not YA literature. While it sounds like he is narrating while these events are occurring, I can’t imagine a 12 year old narrating with this insightfulness.
My only criticism to the author is that he forgets that he is narrating from the point of view of a 12 year old. One minute he is too knowing of adults and the next clueless to why they do the things that they do.
Read it!
