Bringing Back Kay-Kay - Dev Kothari - ★★★.½
AUTHOR: Dev Kothari
GENRE: Middle-Grade Mystery
PUBLICATION DATE: October 1, 2024
RATING: 3.5 stars.
In a Nutshell: A middle-grade mystery about a girl who is determined to locate her missing elder brother. Indian setting. Good tackling of the sibling bond. A bit bleak in tone, though the ending is positive. Will suit teens better.
Plot Preview:
Lena is used to being ignored. Her elder brother Karthik, aka Kay-Kay, has always been the apple of his parents’ eyes. When he goes away for a two-week camp, Lena’s parents finally begin noticing her and indulging her, to the point that Lena secretly wishes that Kay-Kay wouldn’t come back. Now that nightmare seems to have come true. Kay-Kay isn’t on the return train, and none of his camp mates have any clue about when or where he vanished. As Lena is stricken with fear and guilt, she embarks on a quest to locate Kay-Kay, even if it means making some questionable choices.
The story comes to us in Lena’s first-person perspective, addressed to Kay-Kay in the second person ‘you’.
Bookish Yays:
🚅 Kay-Kay’s character detailing. When we read missing person stories, we get to know only the other family members. But thanks to Lena’s style of addressing her brother, we get a good glimpse of the kind of person he is. I loved his portrayal.
🚅 The brother-sister bond between Lena and Kay-Kay. Not like most sibling stories. The boy is shown to be understanding and studious and the girl is slightly rebellious. A welcome change, especially considering that they are Indian. (Rebel girls and good boys are rarely found here… at least in fiction. 😉)
🚅 Fast-paced writing with shortish chapters – perfect for the age group.
🚅 The Indian rep. Right from the setting and the people to the beliefs and the atmosphere, the author seems to have got India right. I love that it is not a lopsided depiction of only positives or only negatives, but a realistic representation of both sides. Lena’s family seems to be upper middle-class, but there are other characters from various backgrounds, thereby throwing light on a varied strata of people. And yes, no comments about class or caste – such a relief to find one book that goes beyond this supposedly-mandatory feature of Indian fiction!
🚅 The portrayal of the adults in the story is surprisingly balanced. Some of them were nincompoops, but there were quite a few helpful and caring adults also, even among the strangers Lena meets. It was fairly realistic. (Much better than many YA novels.)
🚅 The depiction of the son-obsessed Indian family, where the son is the centre of attention and the daughter is just an add-on sibling – such a sad but true portrayal. I felt sorry for Lena as her parents didn’t even seem to give her a part of attention or love they showered on Kay-Kay.
🚅 The story also highlights the pressures put on the elder child of always performing a certain way, scoring a certain way, choosing a certain career, being more traditional in their choices. As an elder child myself, I felt Kay-Kay’s pain to the core. Oldest Child Syndrome is real. ☹
🚅 The detailing of descriptions and emotions is absolutely beautiful.
🚅 A few Indian words that captured the spirit of the language in the most realistic way. ‘Gunda-mawali boys’, ‘sacchi mucchi’, ‘khadoos’… are words that can’t be translated precisely without losing a part of their meaning, but are so intrinsically ours. I laughed when I saw the appearance of “God promise!” (Outsiders won't understand the sanctity of a “God promise” or a “Mother promise” declaration! 😆) The words are included in such a way as would not be confusing to those who won't know them. No glossary; then again, no glossary can exist for such vernacular.
Bookish Mixed Bags:
🚂 Stan the Man, who wasn't exactly a man – what a wonderful character! Loved him! But why was his fate left open? Uncertainty isn't a good feature in children’s books, especially when it involves a positive character.
🚂 Considering that the very first sentence of the story mentions that Kay-Kay is missing, the content is somewhat emotionally intense, and Lena’s narrative often gets introspective. While I am okay with such content as an adult reader, I feel like it might be a bit too sombre for middle-graders. Of course, the topic itself is such that one can’t have a jovial approach. But perhaps more scenes like the ones with Stan the Man would have helped balance out the emotions. Onjali Q. Raúf’s middle-grade novel ‘The Star Outside My Window’ also had a sad subject but tackled it with a more balanced approach.
🚂 I did like some of Lena’s attributes such as her loyalty towards her parents even when they didn’t reciprocate, her love for her brother, and her resourcefulness But I also found her a bit impolite at times. The scene where she first interacted with the police officer feels very unrealistic; I doubt any regular Indian child would answer back a policeman like that.
🚂 The writing style is a bit too complex for middle-graders. While Lena’s first-person focusses on current events, she has a tendency to slide into past memories at random. Moreover, her writing is addressed to Kay-Kay in second person (a writing choice I didn’t quite understand – it’s not like Lena was writing in a journal!), so the sudden “you” coming in between conversations and reminiscences can be befuddling at times.
🚂 While I liked the depiction of India, I couldn’t quite figure out where the story was set. The places mentioned – Kolar, Margao, Aravali, Lamora – are in varied parts of this huge country. But the travel time taken by Lena indicates that they were fairly close by. I wish the setting had been clearer. Of course, this doesn’t hamper the story and won't impact those who know nothing of these locations.
🚂 There are some beautiful poems in the content. I usually don't read poems in novels as I'm not a poetry aficionado, but this time, I read most of them as the style seemed heartfelt. (This also probably proves that my poetry appreciation skill is at the MG level. 🤭) However, thanks to the emotional content of the poems, I ended up solving the mystery very differently in my head. The actual reveal seemed bland in comparison.
🚂 We can see from the cover page that the story involves a solo adventure at some point. This happens only in the second half of the book, so the cover art, though stunning, is a teeny spoiler to the path Lena will take in her quest to find Kay-Kay. I'm not a big fan of fictional children endangering themselves through such dangerous missions, but I also know how much children enjoy such adventurous stories. I just hope they see that Lena’s plan is mostly impulsive, somewhat half-baked, and involves a lot of luck – not every real-life adventure ends that way.
Bookish Nays:
🚧 The ending fell flat to me. While the book has a happy conclusion (I’m sure this is not a spoiler; only a sadist would provide sad endings in children’s fiction), I hoped to see a proper unfolding of the rescue mission, if I can call it that. I can’t believe the story actually skipped over all of that and jumped straight to the ‘after’. Seeing the successful achievement of the task is the best part of reading a quest story!
🚧 This is more of a me problem. But I am not that fond of any book where the protagonist is the only competent one in solving a case. She alone finds clues, she alone deciphers loopholes in the investigation, she alone interviews the right people, she alone identifies potential suspects… it gets a bit farfetched, especially considering that she is just twelve. Kids might not have an issue with this.
All in all, despite somewhat mixed feelings on certain aspects, my perspective is that as an adult reading a children’s story. The main content – the plot, the characters, the adventure, and the ending – might work better for the right age group. That said, given some of the content (there is even a scene set in a morgue, with the family being called for identification of a body), this might suit teen readers better than middle-graders.
For an external viewpoint on the above, I consulted two connoisseurs of middle-grade fiction who are known for their impeccable taste, picky preferences, and filter-free opinions. (Yeah okay, I spoke to my daughters. 🤭) They too weren’t certain if they would read a gloomy story, though neither of them said an outright no. There’s hope yet!
As a debut work, the book is truly impressive. I’m definitely interested in reading more from this author, especially if she ever pens an adult novel; her writing style is quite literary so it would work wonders in serious adult fiction genres.
Recommended to teens looking for a rescue mission kind of story with a female protagonist and an Indian setting. As long as the young readers don’t expect too much adventure and action, and are open to an introspective narrative, the story should work for them.
3.5 stars. (I would have gone higher in my rating had I liked the ending better, but I’m still rounding up wherever applicable as I loved the depiction of India in this book.)
My thanks to Hear Our Voices Book Tours and Walker Books US for a complimentary copy of 'Bringing Back Kay-Kay' via Edelweiss+, and for allowing me to be a part of this blog tour. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
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Blurb:
Steeped in mystery and adventure, this brisk and beautifully crafted middle-grade debut set in modern-day India explores the complexities of the sibling bond.
When her older brother, Karthik—Kay-Kay, the golden child of the family—heads to camp for two weeks, Lena’s parents begin showering her with all the attention she craves. For a time, she’s the golden child and secretly wishes her brother wouldn’t come home. But when the scheduled train arrives and Karthik isn’t on it, Lena is stricken with guilt and fear for her beloved Kay-Kay. Her brother has vanished without a trace, and the police view him as a runaway. Incredulous, Lena undertakes a search of her own—reading mysterious poems left in his backpack, interrogating his fellows from the train, retracing his route, and encountering shadowy strangers along the way. Convinced Kay-Kay is still alive even when the rest of her family has given up, Lena steadily unearths her brother’s secrets as her determination to bring him home leads to a heart-stopping discovery. Perhaps Kay-Kay isn’t a golden child after all?
Set in a vividly evoked modern-day India, this character-driven middle-grade mystery tackles rich themes—from the sibling bond to self-worth—in a taut and suspenseful adventure.
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Author Dev Kothari:
Dev Kothari grew up in a sleepy hamlet near Mumbai, where she read obsessively, wrote furtively and daydreamed endlessly. After graduating with an engineering degree, she moved to the UK where she worked and went on to earn an MBA from the University of Oxford and and MA with distinction in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University.
She won the Commonword Diversity YA novel prize in 2018 and her work has been listed for many other awards.
'Bringing back Kay-Kay' is her debut novel. She is currently working on another middle grade title to be published in 2025 and a picture book title to be published in 2026.
She lives in London with her family.
Connect with her on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DevyaniNK
Instagram: https://instagram.com/devyani_nk/
Website: https://devkothari.com/
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Check out this book:
Purchase from:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Bringing-Back-Kay-Kay-Dev-Kothari/dp/1536233641
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bringing-Back-Kay-Kay-Dev-Kothari/dp/1536233641
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bringing-Back-Kay-Kay-Dev-Kothari/dp/1536233641
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This has been a stop on the #BringingBackKayKay blog tour conducted by Hear Our Voices Tours. (@hearourvoicestours) Thanks for stopping by!
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