Book Review: Secret Daughter

My book club is now reading Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda.  It's a novel about Asha, a baby girl born in India to a poor family, whose mother must sneak her away from the village to take her to an orphanage in Mumbai to spare her life.  Little girls were not valued in Asha's family because a son was needed to work in the fields, and there just wasn't enough money to pay for a dowry for a daughter.

Luckily, Asha is adopted by a childless couple in the US.  Somer is a pediatrician in California, and Krishnan, her Indian husband, is a neurosurgeon.  They raise Asha with love and care, but Asha always yearns to learn the truth about her past.  By the time Asha goes to college, she wins a Watson fellowship to study and travel to India.  This is her first trip back to India to meet her relatives, and she finds many answers there.

I enjoyed reading the book.  Seeing India through Asha's eyes and learning about the culture was enlightening.  I would have loved to delve deeper into the characters within this book.

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