Behind The Beautiful Forevers Book Report

“’Everything around us is roses…And we’re the shit in between’” (Boo xii). Katherine Boo spent 4 years in Mumbai, India: a city that had some of the wealthiest areas next to the poorest slums. Her book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, focuses on the slum of Annawadi. This is a community of primarily trash-pickers and scavengers, with an extremely small percentage of residents with permanent jobs and a barely livable average income. These people live right under the noses of large and gorgeous hotels and airport buildings, watching rich westerners come and go. One of these slum dwellers, Mirchi, captures this stark contrast when he compares his surroundings to beautiful things while his community is so nasty in between. Yet, this book does not portray those in the slum of Annawadi as dirty or bad people whatsoever. While the travelers and wealthy may see the poor as less than them, this book shows that just because those in Annawadi may have less material, they are not of less worth as people. Behind the Beautiful Forevers was written to show readers that …show more content…
This is very important to realize. As readers, we have personal biases about how the world is and more often than not those biases include the fact that we live in financial stability with a good amount of possessions. Having many things can lead to the belief that those who do not have as much are inferior based on their pure materials. This is significant to shed light on the fact that those who are impoverished with little wealth and material have a personal value that can be much higher than those who let their physical possessions get in the way. We with our possessions may be like unto flowers, but that does not mean that what fertilizes us without the same beauty is not just as important and worth