DNF - I found myself not able to connect with the narrative at hand & rather distracted throughout my reading experience. I am sure that this book will find its way to those readers who will appreciate every part of what it is.

I rarely use terms such as 'unputdownable' in my reviews but on this occasion it is the perfect adjective to describe this book. It is hugely powerful, and I can confidently say that it is the best book that I have read this year.

I devoured it over the course of a weekend and made the big mistake of finishing it in bed one night as I could not get to sleep afterwards. There was so much to process, and aspects of the story were going through my mind for ages.

As a film director, Mr. DeStefano has imbued this novel with a cinematic feel through vivid imagery of Vijay's world. According to IMDB it is in development to be turned into a screen play.

This is his debut novel and I hope he will produce more fiction. He is an excellent storyteller and has written a book which is thought-provoking and powerful and which I think everyone should read.

It's a depressing story, nearly unbelievable, gory and shocking, but part of the reality we live in. DeStefano describes in exquisite English the most horrendous events and draws you in a world you'd prefer not to know.

This is a weird novel about a young Dalit boy, Vijay, who leaves his small village of Chettipattu, is entangled in an international slave-smuggling scam and is forced to become domestic sex servant in an English home. But my issue is not with its implausibly sensationalistic plot, but with its style and language. There are explanations of the Indian caste-system, descriptions of rampant city corruption and factory exploitation in Chennai, and casual allusions to "notorious gang battles". There is a terse account of why he could not intervene when a group of Brahmin boys sexually attacked his sisters; there is an emotionally stolid explanation by the father about how first-born sons must financially support the family. The intended reader of this novel is clearly white and the explanations are clearly intended as reading aids to a culturally illiterate American audience. For this reason, it never feels like an authentically or meaningfully Indian perspective. When Vijay's passport is taken, when he is locked inside the house, when he becomes an indentured slave, we get very little psychological insight; we just see his apologetic politeness and hear explanatory backstories about welfare-fraud. The prose is always upbeat and prim, even when discussing brutal violence (take, for example, "he performs his post-homicidal duties with a numbness born of involuntary impulse"--I actually quite liked this sentence, clinically polysyllabic and grimly dispassionate, but again we get no insight into Vijay's feelings--the Indian Dalit is imagined as passive and almost always uncomprehendingly mute). Enslavement, murder and rape are simply treated as some kind of exotic curiosa.

Thanks for the chance to read this from Netgalley.

House Boy by Lorenzo DeStefano was a challenging read. At times it felt more like a documentary/magazine article than a fiction/novel. The book is generally well-written, but for my taste, the story is not as well constructed as it could have been. The plot unfolds in a linear fashion when, for better effect, there could have been parallel plots unfolding from different characters' persectives and a more colourful use of memories/flashbacks. It's challenging for the reader when the writer uses dreams/inspirations as the primary tool for discovering a crime; this genre seems to require a higher level of authenticity than literary fiction.

It was a peculiar yet interesting read. I was quite absorbed in to every pages and the events were too real for something that could have happened in real life since the plot is based on a true story. Enjoyed it. I would say,do not judge the book by the word 'peculiar' I just mention. Something could be weird but interesting. Try the book out and see how it fares for you.

Overall I found this an engaging and compulsive read that felt realistic and a dark but important narrative.
I didn’t give it a higher rating because overall I couldn’t get into it as much as I thought I would-the writing at times felt too chunky and wasn’t neither complex enough for the complicated subject nor stark and simple enough for the raw cruelty needed of the story.
I see it says it’s based on a true story and another reviewer said there’s a documentary that could have been the inspiration for this-I will be looking into this further because I did find the true events very tragic and also sadly very important in our current timeline of still terrifying and horrific happenings to other races and sexualities.
I will probably reread it soon and also feel it would be a great suggestion for my book club, because it’s intense and powerful but also a wonderful conversation started on race, religion, and overall treatment and conversation of privilege.
I felt the abuse was graphic but a kind of necessary head on, if it had been a swift, few sentences it wouldn’t have had enough grip and bite to this book that, overall, did need just an extra nipping gnash to have more weight to it in terms of the writing.
The story, pace, characters were all fine-the development of them wasn’t deep enough and although the different characters a chapter worked at times, sometimes it just didn’t…
it was well written in moments like the abuse and the Indian chapters, but then often it felt too simplistic at times and not the kind of raw, stinging prose that is stripped down-that can really work for short, brutal chapters, this, however, was often just simple prose until the abuse and suffocating situation.
I thought the Indian chapters were wonderful and had such vivid, forming breath to them and if those and the abuse chapters could’ve been all the way through I think it would’ve stuck with me more.
However all in all this story will be one for me to discuss with friends and also a terrible situation that will make me go and research the events more,.

This is a hard one for me. in some ways I enjoyed this book and in other ways I feel there was uneccessaty parts of it too. I thought it was well written and that the story was compelling that I couldn't stop reading but it was uncomfortable to think this could actually be true and that i was then enjoying it.

This book is about a Dalit Indian man who is basically enslaved in current-day time in England, as a "house boy" for a rich and corrupt Indian family. This was one of the most graphic stories I have ever read- at some points it was almost too much for me to read and was really hoping that the entire story wouldn't be the details of his abuse, and was glad it wasn't.

The writing of this story felt clunky and awkward to me, I wish it had been told in 1st person, with each chapter a different characters' point of view. I think it would have helped with the flow and helped me feel more connected to the characters. Some parts just didn't make sense to me. Like his friendly relationship with Sheela seemed so random and out of nowhere. The character development for a lot of the characters just wasn't great.

I did enjoy the brief moments in the story when we read about the main character's life in South India and wish there was more of that. I was really excited to read a story with the main character living in South India, but he was really only in South India for a brief moment in the story.

Also I am a bit confused if this story is true or not- it says that it is based on "true events", but it seems there was a documentary of the same title that was a true story. Why not just write this as a true story? This would have been more interesting to me, as a lot of it felt "over the top" and like the writer was trying to make it as dramatic as possible.

An interesting read overall.