This book is lyrical, tender, and gutting in the quietest ways, especially as it explores love, friendship and identity.

I'll start by saying that this is NOT a romance, but the story of two platonic soulmates navigating their lives & their friendship, supporting and loving each other through the ups and downs of their lives
It is beautifully written and I absolutely loved both of our characters, Luke & Lara
The author captures their quiet resilience, their beautiful love for each other and their deeply human flaws wonderfully

That said, I do have a couple of gripes with this book
First, that the time jumps are jarring because after every 30ish pages we jump 5 years and switch characters, so by the time we check back in with the same character it's been 10 years for them. It makes it such that most of their stories happen off page, during the years that we jumped over and were just TOLD about what happened and there's no emotional impact (lots of telling instead of showing)
Second, that the third person narrative doesn't help with the fact that the characters and their stories already feel distant to the reader

I'd say that, if this was 400-500 pages long (instead of the 280 pages that it currently is) so that we could've had ample time to explore their life events, relationships & internal emotional lives ON the page and if it was written in first person, then, I'd have enjoyed this SOOO much more
also, a prettier cover and more interesting title wouldn't hurt

“Luke and Lara” by Poornima Manco tells the parallel stories of two people over a span over more than forty years. They meet in India as children; Lara is Indian, whose mother works for Luke’s father while he is stationed there in 1985. Luke, who’s background is American, British, and Anglo-Indian saves Lara from drowning in a swimming pool incident that his stepsister was entirely responsible for. From that point, a friendship based on books on ideas begins and carries on even after Luke and his family leaves India. It is if they had met their soulmates and time and distance does nothing to lessen their feelings for each other. Their lives stay intertwined both through letters, getting together in person, and later in the workplace. Luke and Lara love each other dearly but not romantically. Even though they have other loves in their lives, no one can take the place of their childhood friend who knows them better than any other person in the world. It is to each other they turn when they are sad, in trouble, and brokenhearted.
This is a great book exploring the depths of platonic friendship. Another plus for me is any book set (in this case, partially) in India. I also enjoyed the passage of time throughout the book, although that did make me feel a little old to see how quickly the past 40 years of my own life passed! Many thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel. My opinion is my own.

Poornima knows how to give us books, man. books that grab us and takes us of journeys of people and feelings. your heart is in, your head is in, you have reading eyes that have read and been hooked to the pages for too long! and i love books that do this to me. good books, real good books. i also love those books that follow characters throughout and in time. we saw all of them, we get to know all of them. we see time span and lifes changes for them. and we get to care. and care i did. i was in it and rooting for our pair. i was heart tugged and heart joyed in moments. and wanting them to just be ok. i just need to know the pair would somehow come out of it with being okay.
i dont know how you craft a book like this that is covers so much but links and is thought out so it all works. but it does. it all works.
we are drawn in to the friendship of Lara and Luke. from the moment when they were younger and an incident bought them together we get to follow them. their families know each other but no as equals. but their friendship forges on throughout all their next years and developments from where they live to who they love we get to follow them both. it spans cities and even countries.but the underlying strength of their friendship is there, always there. its their anchor. lives are not always easy and losses happen. but we always are on the outside willing our pair on and willing their friendship to withstand.