(2) YA Desai's gorgeous novel pulls readers in to the world of young Lila and Hari, struggling siblings growing up in the isolated Western Indian village of Thul; both the characters and the place are on the cusp of change. In lucid prose, Desai engages the senses, describing the sigh of the ocean as the tide turns; the children's drunken father snoring in a corner; the village women wading into the sea to meet the fishing fleet and then spilling baskets full of shining, slithering fish onto the sand.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2019