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A People's History of Heaven
Feb. 8th, 2026 10:44 amA People's History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian tells the story of five young women living in a slum in Bangalore, which has been scheduled for demolition.
And while that is the throughline of the story, what the book actually does is present deep character studies of each of the five girls (and some of their relatives), weaving their backgrounds together to track their lives.
It took me a while to get a hold of the type of story I was reading, and be able to keep track of the different threads, because each section is very short and the narrative jumps back and forth through time a lot. The use of past and present tense also doesn't always feel right for the timeline, which made it confusing in places.
But I loved the first person plural POV, which binds the girls together into a close unit, and I grew to love all five of them (and various of their relatives) over the course of the book.
By the end, it all came together beautifully in a way that had me hugging the book to my chest after finishing it, and I felt like all the characters were good friends.
And while that is the throughline of the story, what the book actually does is present deep character studies of each of the five girls (and some of their relatives), weaving their backgrounds together to track their lives.
It took me a while to get a hold of the type of story I was reading, and be able to keep track of the different threads, because each section is very short and the narrative jumps back and forth through time a lot. The use of past and present tense also doesn't always feel right for the timeline, which made it confusing in places.
But I loved the first person plural POV, which binds the girls together into a close unit, and I grew to love all five of them (and various of their relatives) over the course of the book.
By the end, it all came together beautifully in a way that had me hugging the book to my chest after finishing it, and I felt like all the characters were good friends.
