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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Barely any
No significant violence; some aggressive confrontation between rivals
Language
Some
Moderate language; Mumbai setting with authentic register
Sexual Content
Barely any
A teenage boy's emerging sexuality; handled with care and complexity
Substance Use
None
No substance use
Emotional Intensity
A lot
A son who cannot be what his father needs, the cost of ambition that belongs to someone else, sexual identity discovered under impossible conditions
What this book is about
In Mumbai, Mohan Kumar has devoted his entire life — and bankrupted himself — to turning his two sons into cricket stars. Radha is the more gifted; Manju, the younger, is uncertain about everything his father wants for him. When Manju forms an intense friendship with a rival from a wealthy family, he begins to understand what he actually wants — and that it cannot coexist with the life his father has mapped out. Aravind Adiga's novel is sharp and complicated: about ambition, sport, sexual identity, and the fathers who consume their sons.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
queer identity themes in a homophobic environment
father's obsession as a form of abuse
cricket as an allegory for Indian aspiration
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