Fifteen Lanes by S.J. Laidlaw
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was an utterly absorbing novel that forced me to read it pretty much non-stop until I was finished.
Dual first-person narratives, both teen girls in Mumbai, but they couldn’t have come from more disparate circumstances. Noor is the daughter of a sex worker and the novel opens with Noor sleeping under her mother’s bed as men are being serviced above. Grace is a wealthy privileged student at a Mumbai International School. Both are bullied and shamed at their respective schools and their stories intersect when Grace volunteers at an NGO that assists the children of sex workers.
In less deft hands this story could have read like a sermon but S. J. Laidlaw writes with well-researched clarity and passion. Her portrayal of Noor’s appalling life circumstances is precise but never pandering. You’d think that any problem Grace could have would be overshadowed by Noor’s, but there’s actually a good balance. The systematic bullying that Grace suffers will be instantly familiar to North American teen readers. The juxtaposition of the two girls’ problems works very well.
I won’t tell you what the ending is, but I will tell you that it’s satisfying, and not in the expected way.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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