I agree with the reviewer who wrote "Good Plot, Weak Characters." The idea of following two families who do not know they are connected, one who places a child for adoption because she is a girl, and one who lives halfway around the world who adopts the girl, is wonderful. Ann Hood did this to some extent in "The Red Thread," but she did not follow the Chinese mothers for the rest of their lives, as Shilpa Gowda follows Kavita. Kavita is married to Jasu, who had their first-born daughter killed. They can only afford one child, and he will do anything for a son. When Kavita produces yet another girl child, she runs away from her small village to an orphanage in Mumbai, to leave the wrong-gendered infant and spare her the fate of her older sister. Meanwhile, we meet Somer (American, Caucasian, Protestant) and Krishnan (Indian, Hindu), a young married couple living in California whose efforts to give birth have produced nothing but grief. They travel to India to adopt the little girl that Kavita placed in the orphanage, whom they call Asha (Hope).
(What comes below talks about more of the plot than you may want to know if you plan to read the book.)
It is not clear what attracts Somer and Krishnan to each other in the first place; perhaps Somer is drawn in by the exotic, foreign Krishnan, so different than anything else in her otherwise plain vanilla life. Somer has little if any interest in Krishnan's culture, so unless Krishnan is trying to escape all memories of India (and there is nothing that indicates this), it is hard to see what attracts him to Somer (yes she is bright and attractive, but can someone really love another person who has no interest in his native land/culture?). The adoption and raising of Asha hold this couple together, but when Asha leaves the nest for college and a fellowship in India, the cracks in the marriage show all too clearly.
Meanwhile, Kavita gives birth to the long-dreamed of son, Vijoy (Victory). The family's move from village to city (Mumbai, naturally) proves economically sound, but plays havoc with the traditional family bonds, as Vijoy is influenced more by friends than family, and grows up to be a drug dealer. Why his parents take his ill-gotten money when they know what he is doing is not clear to me, as Kavita is portrayed as a long-suffering saint and Jasu slowly reveals that, despite having his first child killed, he has (almost) a heart of gold.
Growing up, Asha has shown some curiousity about her birth family and birth culture This section of the book needs considerably more substance if we are to believe that Asha travels to India to stay with her father's relatives whom she does not know and winds up wholeheartedly embracing the family (and vica versa) and the culture, and of course, finding love (while writing prize-winning articles to boot). She also searches for her birth family, which is totally believable, but the resolution is wishy-washy.
One gaping omission is the role of the caste system in the life of Indian society. Does caste really play NO role in this story? How can that possibly be? Why is it never mentioned when it is so important in Hindu India? Would all of Krishnan's family truly embrace this adopted child, most likely from a lower caste than they? Would Asha really be given such an honored role at her grandfather's funeral? Is the author saying that caste is meaningless in India, or does she just wish that were true?
This could have been a very compelling story about cross-cultural and transracial adoption if it had examined more thoroughly and realistically each member of the adoption triad and the cultures that they came from.
