Lucky Boy

By: Shanthi Sekaran

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani, Roxana Ortega

Length: 16 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

A gripping tale of adventure and searing reality, Lucky Boy gives voice to two mothers bound together by their love for one lucky boy.

Solimar Castro Valdez is 18 and drunk on optimism when she embarks on a perilous journey across the US-Mexican border. Weeks later she arrives on her cousin's doorstep in Berkeley, California, dazed by first love found then lost - and pregnant. This was not the plan. But amid the uncertainty of new motherhood and her American identity, Soli learns that when you have just one precious possession, you guard it with your life. For Soli, motherhood becomes her dwelling and the boy at her breast her hearth.

Kavya Reddy has always followed her heart, much to her parents' chagrin. A mostly contented chef at a UC Berkeley sorority house, the unexpected desire to have a child descends like a cyclone in Kavya's mid-30s. When she can't get pregnant, this desire will test her marriage, it will test her sanity, and it will set Kavya and her husband, Rishi, on a collision course with Soli when she is detained and her infant son comes under Kavya's care. As Kavya learns to be a mother - the singing, storytelling, inventor-of-the-universe kind of mother she fantasized about being - she builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else's child.

Lucky Boy is an emotional journey that will leave you certain of the redemptive beauty of this world. There are no bad guys in this story, no obvious hero. From rural Oaxaca to Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto to the dreamscapes of Silicon Valley, author Shanthi Sekaran has taken real life and applied it to fiction; the results are moving and revelatory.

©2017 Shanthi Sekaran (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Sekaran has written a page-turner that’s touching and all too real.” (People)

“Offers a brilliantly agonizing setup.... [An] exceptional novel.” (The New York Times)

“Pulses with vitality, pumped with the life breath of human sin and love.” (USA Today)

Great Read

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. An absolute must read. The narration was clear and entertaining.

Great book!

I really enjoyed this book. It gave me insight to many sides of immigration, the challenges we have in our system and how both women in the story had to live with sorrow and heartbreak. I thought it would be easy to find one point of view "right" and the other "wrong", but instead saw the story from both sides and feel for both women.

Leaves a lot to think about.

Interesting adventure but it opens the mind to some important issues that do not have any good solutions in our imperfect world. Mistakes were made, but they were honest mistakes albeit illegal. They were born out of hearts that were driven by a desire/need for a better and happier life with no intention of hurting anyone. It is hard for me to blame anyone for that.

This book is a page-turner for sure!

Would you consider the audio edition of Lucky Boy to be better than the print version?

Loved listening to this book. I'm sure the print version would be just as engaging!

Laura

This is my new favorite book! I loved it. The characters and the little boy, the author wrote it so well the reader could totally picture it all happening. I plan on reading more books by this author.

What a wonderful performance

I was absolutely immersed in the performance of this beautiful, thoughtful, poignant story. The characters were brought to life with the wonderful accents and rhythm of language. One of my favorites.

Magnificent

As a voracious reader for over 60 years, and a former foster child, I was interested in the premise of the story so I decided to listen. Turns out this was one of the best books I have ever read/listened to, and I'm sure I will listen/read it again and again though I never do that. I will also read/listen everything Sekaran has written and everything that Nankani and Ortega have narrated. This audiobook and its written version are a tribute to love and a gift to the listener/reader just when we need it most.

questionable

I have to admit,this book was riveting. Two stories intertwined to collide beautifully. Except, some of the author's data and accuracy were questionable so as to make me very doubtful and therefore kind of ruined it for me, things about our legal system and immigration. I was believing it until the main character got the flu in Berkeley in August. This may seem trivial, but the chances of that happening are about 0%. I am a factual reader and so this made me doubt the rest of the plausibility of her story.

Lovely Book

Very slow start but keep with it as it gets better could not put it down the end was sad I wanted it to keep going.

Lucky Boy - An Epic immigrant struggle in America.

Beautifully written! Wonderfully narrated, both the Mexican voices and the Indian voices. It was hard to put it down. Shanti Sekaran is a very talented writer.