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Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian
A magical realist coming-of-age story, Gold Diggers skewers the model minority myth to tell a hilarious and moving story about immigrant identity, community, and the underside of ambition.
A floundering second-generation teenager growing up in the Bush-era Atlanta suburbs, Neil Narayan is funny and smart but struggles to bear the weight of expectations of his family and their Asian American enclave. He tries to want their version of success, but mostly, Neil just wants his neighbor across the cul-de-sac, Anita Dayal.
When he discovers that Anita is the beneficiary of an ancient, alchemical potion made from stolen gold—a “lemonade” that harnesses the ambition of the gold’s original owner—Neil sees his chance to get ahead. But events spiral into a tragedy that rips their community apart. Years later in the Bay Area, Neil still bristles against his community's expectations—and finds he might need one more hit of that lemonade, no matter the cost.
Sanjena Sathian’s astonishing debut offers a fine-grained, profoundly intelligent, and bitingly funny investigation into what's required to make it in America.
Review from School Library Journal:
Neil is first-generation Indian American: His father emigrated from India to attend university, and his mother left India to marry his father. His parents settled in suburban Atlanta in a small community of Indian immigrants all striving to ensure that their kids become successful. The pressure to meet expectations is relentless and by high school, Neil is overwhelmed and underperforming. But his best friend and next-door neighbor Anita seems to have switched up gears dramatically. Neil discovers that Anita and her mother are making an alchemical drink derived from ancient Indian lore about the power of gold, which infuses Anita with extra drive and purpose. Neil wants in. But to make this elixir, they have to steal, and perhaps not just gold. It's not long before something dreadful happens and Neil and Anita must come to grips with their part in the tragedy, take responsibility, and make amends. This is an intense and riveting immigrant coming-of-age story, alternately funny and serious, mashed up with magical realism that makes a moving, heartfelt statement of how to become you, no matter who you are, where you are from, or where you are now.
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