Lucky Boy - Shanthi Sekaran

My fingers landed on this intriguing book at my library's last used book sale. And I'm so glad this book found me. I had never heard of it before, had never heard of the author either. So I went into the book with a completely open mind and neutral expectations. It completely exceeded anything I could have hoped for in an unknown pick.

Lucky Boy tells the story of two women: Solimar Valdez leaves her tiny Mexican town for a better life in America. In order to get there she has to find a bit of her own way. And it's pretty terrible the things she endures for this opportunity. Immigration and undocumented immigrants seems to be a bit of a hot topic right now (to say the least) and while this book doesn't really take a stance on the politics or legalities of the situation, it does put a very human face on a very vivid picture of suffering and indifference. 

But I digress, because also happening in this novel is a wonderful woman named Kavya who has rebelled against her traditional Indian-American immigrant mother and has struck out on her own. She's married Rishi, an environmental scientist who focuses on clean air projects at the headquarters of Weebies (re: Amazon for babies). Kavya has always gotten her way, no matter how much it displeases her mother and now she wants a baby but is having no luck. Like many, she's forced to empty her savings in order to chase this desire only to come up short time and again. 

So when Solimar (Soli) arrives in the US, her cousin helps find her a position as a house cleaner to a white Berkeley family. And Soli finds out that she has carried something else across the border, a baby, to be born in American, to be American. With only her cousin's support (sometimes begrudging), Soli works as a cleaner and then nanny to the white family after her son, Ignacio, is born. Through a series of bad breaks shortly after Ignacio turns one, Soli is arrested and the boy is put into foster care as her case winds through immigration. Except, well our system for housing, detaining and deporting immigrants is woefully bereft of accountability and efficiency. 

Enter Kavya and Rishi, recently determined to be foster parents as an alternative to continued IVF cycles. When they meet Ignacio, Kavya is instantly bonded to him. He eventually comes to live with them and Kavya puts her whole heart into loving and becoming Ignacio's mother. When she finds out his birth mother, Soli, very much wants her son back, Kavya decides she can fight through the courts, for custody of Ignacio. 

There are bad guys in this story, but it's not Soli or Kavya. They both love Ignacio fiercely and the crux of the book is what is to be done for Ignacio. The story line reminded me somewhat of Light Between Oceans where two mothers yearn for one child. I've never struggled with infertility and I've never had the opportunity to love someone else's child like Kavya, but I found her relatable and sympathetic, despite not agreeing with her position regarding Ignacio. 

The two women in the story are so well written. I'll have to look for more works by Shanthi Sekaran. This book was very well done.

4/5 Stars.