I'm probably the last person in the world who hasn't seen the movie, but even so I had an idea what to expect from the book. For anyone who doesn't, the premise is that a Mumbai street kid manages to answer 12 increasingly complicated questions on the quiz show, Who Will Win A Billion?, and is promptly arrested for cheating - how could he possibly have known the answers? It turns out, however, that in his downtrodden and varied life, there have been twelve episodes which corresponded to each question.

I love this premise. But I found the book itself a strange combination - the 'rags' part of the story is an uneasy mix of squalid realism and melodrama, even before you layer on the fable-like elements of the 'to riches'.

On one level the book is a homage to Bollywood escapism - at one point Ram (the slumdog) watches a film "about a poor middle-class family coping with a whole heap of problems ... I think it is ridiculous to make such movies. What is the point of watching a film if you can see the real thing in your neighbour's house?" So I get the point that the story is not meant to be realistic. But for me, neither the writing nor the story was good enough for me to overcome the awkward juxtapositions of tone. ( )

LOVED THIS! My nieces had told me the book was so much better than the movie (and I loved the movie) and I totally agree. This story is so much richer, so much more woven with interesting people. I highly recommend it to everyone. ( )

i listened to it. i think it would be better to read it. the reader was great but there are so many characters it's a little hard to keep track. ( )

This a wonderful book . A great read and also a wonderful chain of pearls narrative style. The underdog takes on the world and wins. Actually i didn't like the title of the movie as much because it was not as clever. ( )

Great adventures for such a young person, very readable ( )