Some People - Parini Shroff - ★★★★

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AUTHOR: Parini Shroff
GENRE: Contemporary Fiction
PUBLICATION DATE: July 7, 2026
RATING: 4 stars.


In a Nutshell: A character-driven contemporary fiction depicting a new bond forming between a mother-in-law and son-in-law. Well-sketched characters and many interesting themes. Medium-paced. Mostly conversations and introspections and less action, which can be a drag at times. A nice ending, though a bit abrupt. Recommended.


Plot Preview:
The last person Malti Patel – seventy, divorced, alone in the USA – expects to turn up when she suffers a concussion is her soon-to-be-ex son-in-law Nathan. Her doctor insists on in-house supervision for a week, so she has no choice but to suffer his presence as her daughter Kavya is back in India for her postgraduate studies. Nathan is kind enough to agree to the doctor's instructions, but can Malti allow the person who divorced her daughter to take care of her? As the week goes by, Malti grapples with the shadows of the past and Nathan ponders over the heartbreaks of the present, with both realising that they have hurt the one person they love the most: Kavya.
The story comes to us in the third-person perspectives of Malti and Nathan over a period of nine days.


Bookish Yays:
👌 The unusual character pairing of a mother-in-law and a son-in-law, quite rare in fiction.

👌 Even better, the above characters being Indian and white respectively, and also a boomer and a millennial. Gives the plot a great chance to explore the contrast in their thinking and their approach towards life.

👌 Malti. A typical Indian in almost every way, she displays several traits I see in older women around me. At the same time, she also changes some of her opinions when convinced of their erroneousness - not something many senior citizens are willing to do. I love how she wants to be independent at her age. I also enjoyed her regular use of "ghadheda" (donkey) to refer to her son-in-law. 😄

👌 Nathan. A good counterfoil to Malti, and not the typical kind of lead you would expect given the storyline. I liked his approach towards Matli and his openness to listening. Nathan's ponderings over the breakup of his marriage aren’t typical masculine thoughts but a realistic insight into how marriages actually fail.

👌 The slow growth of understanding and subsequent bonding between Malti and Nathan – nicely and convincingly written.

👌 The character development. Despite the limited number of active characters in the storyline and despite the story developing mainly through conversations, we still get to know the main trio intimately. Kavya, though a pivotal character, is not so active in the plot but as Malti and Nathan’s conversations circulate around her, we get a good insight into her personality as well.

👌 The well-handled themes, especially inter-generational divide, inter-cultural divide, communication gaps, marital struggles, immigrant experience, and racism. There’s a lot of thought-provoking content in the novel.

👌 The regular doses of humour despite the serious content. Helps keep things light amid the heaviness. Shadow, Nathan's cat, is also a good add-on for light relief.

👌 The vocabulary – quite good. The writing has a tendency to go overboard on description at times but there are many quote-worthy lines.


Bookish Nays:
🤔 A lot of conversations and introspection, but very little action. This can get tedious at times, especially as the pacing is on the slow-medium side.

🤔 A bit partial towards the Indian side, which is understandable given the author's background. But I wish the approach had been more balanced, else it sounds biased and didactic.

🤔 The ending. Complete as well as incomplete. I wish we got a little glimpse into what came next. Even an epilogue could have helped instead of the almost-abrupt cut-off.


Overall, the book slowly grew on me just like Nathan slowly grew on Malti. I was initially bogged down by the extended dialogues and musings, but the characters helped keep my experience positive.

Recommended to readers of character-oriented fiction looking for an unusual lead paring and a story coming mainly through conversations and ponderings rather than action.

My thanks to Random House Publishing Group and Ballantine for providing the DRC of “Some People” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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