“We’re all just people, trying. We’re all eggshells, walking around trying not to bump into shit that will break us.”
I really enjoyed Parini Shroff’s The Bandit Queens, so I was eager to read the follow-up novel, Some People (Ballantine Books 2026). While it is a very different book from The Bandit Queens, the writing and the heart of Some People is the same. It is a heart hug of a book, and I loved it.
The novel alternates between Nathan and his mother-in-law, Malti Patel’s, POVs. Nathan is currently separated from Malti’s daughter, Kavya, and Kavya is in grad school in India – much to both Nathan’s and Malti’s dismay.) When Malti is injured, the hospital calls Nathan because Kavya is Malti’s emergency contact and Nathan is still Kavya’s. He agrees to stay with Malti for a few days, which appeases the doctors into releasing her. Neither one of them is exactly excited about the situation, but they both love Kavya. Malti knows if Nathan doesn’t watch her, Kavya will leave the grad program and come home. Nathan knows this as well. They both want the best for Kavya, and Kavya believes the best thing for her, at this time, is to be in India. So, the Indian woman and the white man her daughter is in the process of divorcing are thrown together – for better or worse.
What happens is full of humor and heart and healing. I loved their relationship, partly because the reader realizes sooner than they do that they are very similar. Their similarities are also mirrored in their fractured relationships with Kavya.
Some of my favorite “heart hug” authors are Fredrick Backman and Annie Hartnett. Add Parini Shroff to the list.
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 