Behind the Beautiful Forevers

The most important thing that I learned from Katherine Boo's "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" is that bad situations do not necessarily unite people. The content of the book shows that a majority of people living in Annawadi are poor, and make very little money each day. Despite this, they are not united together against the upper classes that would keep them poor and out of the way in the slums. Fatima, after burning herself to try and bring the Husain family down, says "…it is done now, and I will make them pay!" (Boo 99). She claims that they beat her and burned her after complaining of their construction in their home, but in reality, she was jealous that they were doing better than her, and annoyed that their construction was rattling her own house. Regardless of the fact that they are both poor families and should be angry at the higher classes and the corrupt government for leaving them this way, they fight each other, both trying to bring the other one down to further their own lot in life. It is a vicious cycle, and in the end, the poor class remains largely the same, with no miracles like in "Slumdog Millionaire" to help them. A common theme in American media is the unification of people through crisis, but I realize that a lot of the time, people will turn on each other sooner than they will unite, which warns people not to rely on those you do not know.The style of Boo's writing struck me throughout the book in her way of writing without including herself at all. She offers a deep world view of Annawadi, but there is no sign of her. It is as if she is writing a story, even though everything in it actually happened. For example, when a eunuch comes to Asha's gathering to support Subhash Sawant, Boo's description is very vivid: "Two women pushed forward to spin with the eunuch, becoming sinuous red-and-green blurs" (Boo 55). Though she likely did not witness the event herself, she pieced it together from talking to the people who were there, and recreated the image for people to experience in their minds. This kind of writing impressed me- I lost myself more than once in the story, and I had to keep reminding myself that it was happening in the real world, this was not just some deeply imaginative narrative, but a well researched retelling.The only thing I might criticize about the book would be the ending; the book ends very abruptly. Boo leaves us with a question: "If the house is… crumbling… is it possible to make anything lie straight?" The rhetorical question makes readers reflect on India's corrupt government and the poor people affected by it, but it offers no solution to Abdul's problem. He is still in limbo for his judgement, and his business is gone, and I can't help but wonder, how is his family doing now?