Gosh, I loved this book and I can’t quite believe that I haven’t seen it plastered across my Bookstagram feed in the weeks before and weeks since its release on the 2nd of April.

Set in and around the Pizzeria Vesuvio, a small Italian restaurant owned by the enigmatic Tuli, You People focuses primarily on the characters of Nia, a mixed-race welsh teen fleeing a very unhealthy home environment and Shan, a Sri Lankan Tamil fleeing persecution and desperately trying to reconnect with his wife and son while living in constant fear of discovery and deportation.

Very much character driven and, in the end, posing far more questions that it ever answers, this isn’t a book you finish feeling content that all the threads of the story have been nicely and neatly wrapped up for your convenience. I think the, (in my opinion, unfairly) low Goodreads rating is a result of this not feeling like a ‘complete’ story, it’s more of a tableau, a very character-focused window into a London restaurant and the people who work there. It’s a fitting approach to a book that deals with themes such as immigration, morality and truth, issues that are ongoing, complex, shrouded in ‘fake news’ and rarely wrapped up with a comfortable ending.

I loved this book. Nikita Lalwani’s prose is beautiful, the characters are interesting, complex and vibrant and you really, truly feel the ‘buzz’ of the Pizzeria Vesuvio as you read. I particularly loved the huge question mark that hangs over the mysterious Tuli, the good samaritan who sometimes seems too good to be true.

A brief but beautiful split-narrative that shines a light on a version of London (and the UK) that many of us will never see. A must read for my fellow character-driven enthusiasts.