I received this book from Harper Collins as part of their online book club. I recognized Umrigar's name as the author of The Space Between Us, which I read last year.
The story is about two Americans who lose their young son to a sudden illness. In an effort to repair their marriage, they move to India for the husband's job. There, they meet the young son of their home's caretakers and form a relationship with him. While the theme and initial plot are familiar, even trite, the execution is excellent. And because as a reader I knew the father would try to take this boy on as a confusing replacement to his son, and because I knew that could not end well, reading this book was about how a marriage breaks and how a person deals with grief, without having to be as focused on a complex plot.
Umrigar also captures a few periods of time in the novel - the present, when the couple is living in India, as well as the past, both when they met and when their son got sick. I was rooting for the couple to work things out throughout the story, and found them both to be likable and fallible. I could really feel both the desperation and the hope they each feel throughout the book.
The climax could be ruined with too much commentary on it, so I will just say that this book in its entirety was incredibly well written and well plotted. Recommended.
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