Meg Eden Kuyatt reviews I AM KAVI
Description:
Caught between two worlds—a poverty-stricken village and a fancy big-city school—a young Sri Lankan girl must decide who she really is and where she really belongs.
1998, Colombo. At Kavi’s school, her friends talk about the weekly Top 40, the Backstreet Boys, Shahrukh Khan, Leo & Kate… and who died—or didn’t—in the latest bombing. But Kavi is afraid of something even scarier than war. She fears that if her friends discover her secret—that she is not who she is pretending to be—they’ll stop talking to her.
I want to be friends with these / happy, / fearless, / girls / who look like they / belong.
So I could also be / happy, / fearless, / and maybe even / belong.
Kavi’s scholarship to her elite new school was supposed to be everything she ever wanted, but as she tries to find some semblance of normalcy in a country on fire, nothing is going according to plan. In an effort to fit in with her wealthy, glittering, and self-assured new classmates, Kavi begins telling lies, trading her old life—where she’s a poor girl whose mother has chosen a new husband over her daughter—for a new one, where she’s rich, loved, and wanted. But how long can you pretend to be someone else?
Review:
I Am Kavi is an incredibly compelling novel in verse. We as readers understand Kavi and why conforming is so critical for her survival in city life. I usually don’t resonate with “I need to fit in and be popular” stories but for Kavi it’s not just some superficial aspiration—it’s her ticket out of poverty into possibilities. She makes bad choices but we can understand why and sympathize with her, and worry for her as her compromises build into more and more trouble. I love the nuance to her story and how she learns to view others, like when she begins to question if she’s been completely fair in how she sees her family members, or her assumptions about her rich friends. Kavi is thoughtful and observant of the complex many sides of those around her, and when she is betrayed by others, we feel the sheer devastation of it all. But seeing Kavi stand up for her aunt at the end with “all [her] village-girl strength” makes us cheer her along! Ponweera creates fully rounded, relatable characters, and does a fantastic job capturing the strange social rules of our world and the focused lens of a tween girl. A fantastic, compelling read and page-turner! This book will resonate with young and older readers alike.
Some of my favorite lines from the book include:
“Home for me means
peace of mind.
Without it,
anywhere you live
can be torture.
And with it, even the prison cell
can be freedom.
This is my home,
my peace of mind.”
“That’s when it comes crashing down on me.
I have been spending all my time
since I came here
preparing for the
wrong test.”
“Like the moon,
what others see
when they look at me
depends on
when they are looking.”
“His words stick with me.
They make me wonder
if there’s more to Siripala
than what
I have chosen to see.”
“It makes me
question,
reconsider,
reevaluate.
“Maybe sometimes
we all need
a second chance.”
Thank you to Holiday House for an early review copy.
I AM KAVI (Cover image)
