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What if you could drink the ambition, drive, and focus of others so that you could achieve amazing things like them?  In Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian, you can if you know how to procure gold that is infused with these qualities, and the recipe, and words to make the beverage powerful.  This amazing debut digs into that idea (pun intended) through the eyes of one second-generation Indian-American teen, then follows up with him ten years later.  It explores the struggles of immigrant communities, woes of suburban ambition, and how it all affects teens and the adults they become.  

While Gold Diggers should have been a window to look at the experience some of my friends have faced, there were also parts that felt a bit like a mirror to me.  I’m the third generation on one side to grow up in the same city, so the immigrant portions were definitely a window and I’m grateful for it.  Seeing fictional experiences similar to those experienced by friends and colleagues helps me to have a better understanding as to what their developmental years may have included (because every individual is different).  The pieces that felt familiar were the push to participate and excel because of what parents want for their children.  Neil’s parents want good things for him, but their idea of what that means isn’t the same as his.  They want him to get into an Ivy league school and have a prestigious career, and he doesn’t feel up to that, even though he wants to make them proud.  I didn’t aspire to all that, but I was definitely pushed to do more and become something, just like Neil and his friend Anita.  

Gold Diggers starts with the story of their teen years, which is complex and engaging, and then fast forwards ten years to post-college Neil, which is the part I loved!  Seeing what our characters did with all of their procured (not stolen, nope) drive and ambition, and how it leads to the next portion of the story was so fun.  The world of bridal fairs is also a bit of a mirror for me and a really fun reminiscent moment, as I worked several in college (albeit of the Southern variety) before and after getting to explore the bazaars of southern India.  But truly my favorite part was how the ending came together with so much hope and clarity for Neil and Anita.  

Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian is the story of friends who experience hard things, the children of immigrants who are pushed to achieve, a tale of ambition, and even includes a bit of heist and romance.  It’s a fabulous tale well told, even if it didn’t pull me in the way I wanted (it was me, not the book, because my next read was chosen to do just that and still hasn’t…ugh readerly moods).  I’m giving this debut 3.5 stars and rounding up to four.  I’m really excited to see what else Sathian is cooking up for her readers.

What’s a book you might have read at the wrong time, but appreciate despite the poor timing?

~Nikki 

We have a pretty solid habit of reading authors who have graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Sanjena Sathian joins the ranks of authors we have reviewed from that institution including Cathy Park Hong, Kiley Reid, and Yaa Gyasi. As Nikki mentioned above, Gold Diggers is Sathian’s debut novel which was published in 2021. It was named a Top 10 Book of 2021 by the Washington Post, a Best Book of 2021 by NPR, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, among other accolades. Mindy Kaling’s production company Kaling International has optioned the book for TV adaptation and Sathian is working on that now. In addition to this full-length novel, Sathian’s short fiction has appeared in multiple publications including The Best American Short Stories 2022, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. She currently teaches fiction at Emory University in Atlanta.

This is what happened when we were planning for this May’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Nikki scours her holds list, finds titles we both have the opportunity to get from the library, and we make a decision. Typically the titles found on that holds list have been recommended by such trusted readers as Anne Bogel of What Should I Read Next Podcast and Jamie B. Golden and Knox McCoy of The Popcast, and occasionally other podcasters and personalities, and often, GoodReads when we can get on top of recommending the upcoming releases to our respective libraries. I would like to state for the record that I truly appreciated this process for this month because I didn’t have a whole lot of extra brain cells to rub together and make a decision about what we should be reviewing this month. I appreciate my book buddy so much for taking that burden from my tired little brain cells and providing us with an intriguing first book for this month.  [Nikki here: It was totally Jamie this time!]

I read the marketing copy before I approved our list from Nikki’s list of titles, but Gold Diggers has exceeded my expectations in a couple ways. I think I expected more of a plot driven story where the action pulls the characters along and I was pleasantly surprised by the characters dictating the plot over and over again. I didn’t expect to get so much inner monologue from our narrator, Neil, but I am so glad that happened. Neil struggled in academics during high school and while writing his dissertation in history (I felt seen because I never finished my undergraduate thesis in history…) while also balancing – or not as was often the case – the use of the myriad addictive substances that he thought allowed his brain to function at a level capable of producing the work expected of him. Like Nikki, I also enjoyed the second half of the book, which takes place in 2016, and the way that Neil and Anita’s relationship has changed. I really appreciated the growth that Anita had when she gently confronted Neil about his addictions. I could tell that she knew that Neil was not his addiction and that she couldn’t get him to stop his substance abuse unless he wanted to. I didn’t expect these deep themes from the premise of magical lemonade, but it worked!

I’m giving Gold Diggers four stars. It will be a solid recommendation to other readers. I’m here for anything else Sathian releases, but I’m unlikely to re-read this title. I kept thinking of my sister’s desi friend from high school who was low-key obsessed with Kanye’s Gold Digger, and I really just want to send her this book title and say that I kept thinking of her.

What book have you read that made you think of a specific person to whom you wanted to recommend it?

~Ashley

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