The Boat People Reviews

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/review-sharon-balas-the-boat-people-reveals-beautiful-and-uncomfortable-truths/article37571153/

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-54229-6

Review of Reader (4 stars)
Based on a real-life refugee crisis that hit Canada in 2009, Bala’s debut novel illuminates all sides of the issue by focusing on a father and son who travel from Sri Lanka to Vancouver Island by boat, their lawyers, and the Japanese-Canadian adjudicator who is to decide on their case. The message about the necessity of compassion might not be very subtle, but it’s an important one given the plight of refugees around the world today. There is always a danger of history repeating itself, but getting to know individual refugees and forming compassionate connections is one key way to replace stereotypes with real knowledge. ‘Fresh off the boat’ is an insult the character Kumi used to hear as she walked down the street, and it could be literally applied to Mahindan and his fellow asylum-seekers. But as the epigraph from Martin Luther King, Jr. so perfectly expresses, “We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”