Lucky Boy

October 3, 2016
Sekaran’s second novel (after The Prayer Room) humanizes the issue of illegal immigration. Born in a small, impoverished village in Mexico, teenage Soli makes the dangerous journey across the border to the U.S. and ends up in Berkeley, Calif., living with her cousin, Silvia, and working as housekeeper to the well-to-do Cassidy family. In a parallel story, Kavya Reddy and her techie husband, Rishi, frustrated at their inability to get pregnant, decide to adopt. Having become pregnant en route to the U.S., Soli gives birth to a little boy she nicknames Nacho. Arrested, she is sent to immigrant detention and Nacho is placed in foster care, where he eventually comes to the attention of Kavya and Rishi, who attempt to adopt the boy. But they find there is a steep learning curve in becoming instant parents. From her cell in Washington State, Soli fights the Reddys for custody of her son. With the odds stacked against her, she is left with no choice but to make a desperate bid for freedom for herself and her son. Sekaran has made sure to tell a story without obvious villains (except for government functionaries). Despite the unsurprising and drawn-out ending, Soli and Kavya are both given sympathetic treatment thanks to the textured rendering of their lives, and readers will be emotionally invested
in Nacho’s fate. Agent: Lindsay Edgecombe, Levine, Greenburg, Rostan Agency.

Starred review from November 1, 2016
Two very different women reckon with pregnancy, childbirth, and the meaning of family in Berkeley, California.Kavya is a not-so-good Indian daughter who has failed to live up to her parents' expectations. She's desperate to have a baby with her husband, Rishi, but is unable to conceive. She wanted "to shape her own blood and body into sparkling new life." Soli is an undocumented Mexican immigrant determined to start a new life in America. Betrayed by her border-crossing companion, Manuel, though, she ends up pregnant and single. Without other options, Soli lands a job cleaning houses for a well-to-do white family. Sekaran (The Prayer Room, 2009) intertwines Soli's and Kavya's stories: Soli struggles to navigate life as the single mother of baby boy Ignacio in a strange land, while infertility begins to push Kavya and Rishi further and further apart. But when an accident winds up with Soli in police custody, Ignacio is taken away from her by social services and placed in foster care; Kavya and Rishi, who have given up on fertility treatments and signed up to become foster parents, are selected to provide a temporary home for the baby. While Soli is moved to a detention center for undocumented immigrants--where she undergoes violence and sexual abuse from law enforcement agents--Kavya and Rishi plot to permanently adopt Ignacio. The heartbreaking journeys of these two women, bound by love of the baby boy, are the center of the novel. Sekaran is a master of drawing detailed, richly layered characters and relationships; here are the subtly nuanced lines of love and expectation between parents and children; here, too are moments of great depth and insight.A superbly crafted and engrossing novel.

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Starred review from October 15, 2016
Contrary to what the title suggests, this remarkably empathetic story is about two women, mothers separated by ethnicity and class, whose orbits of longing intersect around one lucky boy, Ignacio. Solimar Castro Valdez might be determined to find her way north from small-town Mexico, but her pursuit of the Great American Dream is complicated by pregnancy. Unfortunately, Soli can't escape the long arm of the law and is forced to give up custody of her toddler to Kavya Reddy, a woman who couldn't be more ready and willing to be a mother to Iggy. Kavya, a rising chef, and her husband, Rishi, a Silicon Valley techie, have been struggling with infertility, and Iggy is delivered as a balm, a child they take in as foster parents but hope to eventually adopt. What follows is an occasionally overlong yet deeply compassionate exploration of the emotional toll of infertility, the insidious ways in which class divides us, the weight of social judgment, and the explosive touch-point of today's headlines regarding illegal immigration. Sekaran (The Prayer Room, 2009) easily navigates emotionally charged minefields without slipping into melodrama and while delivering penetrating insights into the intangibles of motherhood and, indeed, all humanity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2016

Solimar Castro Valdez is uncertain of her future after slipping across the border and landing at a cousin's in Berkeley, but she clings to her baby boy. When she is detained, the baby's care falls to Kavya Reddy, who's desperate to have a child. That puts the two women tragically in conflict. From all accounts an absolute heartbreaker; see Editors' Picks, p. 28.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2016

Living in a village in Oaxaca, Mexico, with few options, Solimar (Soli) makes a harrowing journey across the border and winds up in Berkeley, CA, where her cousin secures her a position as a housekeeper. Meanwhile, Berkeley couple Kavya and Rishi Reddy struggle with their inability to conceive a child. Through a series of circumstances, Kavya and Rishi end up as foster parents to Soli's son, Ignacio, while Soli puts everything on the line to be reunited with him. The novel also humanizes current discussions of immigration, privilege, and what it means to be an American. In contrast to the undocumented Soli, the Reddys are American-born citizens, but their Indian ethnicity at times causes them to be treated as outsiders. Considering what she sacrificed to get to America, Soli has little sympathy for her employers' first-world problems. VERDICT By giving both sides equal weight, Sekaran (The Prayer Room) evokes compassion for all the principals involved in the story, which readers will soon realize will not lead to a fully happy conclusion. Despite a few implausible plot twists in the book's last third, the novel is highly recommended and would be a strong choice for book clubs. [See Prepub Alert, 8/1/16; "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 9/1/16.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2016

Living in a village in Oaxaca, Mexico, with few options, Solimar (Soli) makes a harrowing journey across the border and winds up in Berkeley, CA, where her cousin secures her a position as a housekeeper. Meanwhile, Berkeley couple Kavya and Rishi Reddy struggle with their inability to conceive a child. Through a series of circumstances, Kavya and Rishi end up as foster parents to Soli's son, Ignacio, while Soli puts everything on the line to be reunited with him. The novel also humanizes current discussions of immigration, privilege, and what it means to be an American. In contrast to the undocumented Soli, the Reddys are American-born citizens, but their Indian ethnicity at times causes them to be treated as outsiders. Considering what she sacrificed to get to America, Soli has little sympathy for her employers' first-world problems. VERDICT By giving both sides equal weight, Sekaran (The Prayer Room) evokes compassion for all the principals involved in the story, which readers will soon realize will not lead to a fully happy conclusion. Despite a few implausible plot twists in the book's last third, the novel is highly recommended and would be a strong choice for book clubs. [See Prepub Alert, 8/1/16; "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 9/1/16.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.