A Great Country

A Novel

De: Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Narrado por: Vikas Adam

#1 International Bestseller

Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize & New American Voices Award

Amazon Top 10 Editors Pick

Named a Best Book of the Year by Elle, Cosmo, Real Simple, Glamour, Conde Nast, Readers Digest, & more

""A premise that would (and should) translate well to a prestige television series.""—Elle

""The best...book I read this year was Gowda's timely and touching A Great Country.""—San Diego Union-Tribune

Pacific Hills, California: Gated communities, ocean views, well-tended lawns, serene pools, and now the new home of the Shah family. For the Shah parents, who came to America twenty years earlier with little more than an education and their new marriage, this move represents the culmination of years of hard work and dreaming. For their children, born and raised in America, success is not so simple.

For the most part, these differences among the five members of the Shah family are minor irritants, arguments between parents and children, older and younger siblings. But one Saturday night, the twelve-year-old son is arrested. The fallout from that event will shake each family member’s perception of themselves as individuals, as community members, as Americans, and will lead each to consider: how do we define success? At what cost comes ambition? And what is our role and responsibility in the cultural mosaic of modern America?

For readers of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, A Great Country explores themes of immigration, generational conflict, social class and privilege as it reconsiders the myth of the model minority and questions the price of the American dream.

reader is excellent

pretty negative and preaching, but I kept listening because the reader was so excellent and interesting

Incredible story

This book was so layered with so many different nuances for people to consider. The author did such a lovely job of illustrating, the complexities of different ethnicities, different occupations, and different caste systems… and there were several other social justice issues, but she cleverly gave each a different view so that it made you think about that person’s life experience. It’s a good lesson to consider one another’s journey instead of being so quick to judge or make assumptions.

Understanding the pain immigrants often feel.

Certainly worth the read. Sometimes painful to see who and what we can be to foreigners.

Get ready!

Wow! Shilpi gives us another novel interwoven with thought-provoking topics like ethnicity and race in America, prejudice, social justice and what it means to be in community. Thank you again!

Needs to be longer!

I was disappointed that it ended. I didn’t feel there was any surprises and I felt the story should continue… I felt like I just got to know the characters and it was over.