I listened to the audiobook of this which heavily influenced my experience with this book. I don't normally like to use audiobooks for first time reads because of that, but I'll try to write a review anyway.

First, I quite enjoyed the narrator's voice. His name was Vikas Adam and apparently he's rather well known (I know very little about audiobooks and their narrators so I'd never heard of him). He just had an incredibly pleasing voice and delivery, and it made the whole experience so pleasant. A lot of my feelings about this book come from my enjoyment of listening to his voice rather than the book itself. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this audiobook if you're interested in reading this one.

But getting into the book itself, I expected more of it to focus on Brierley's search for his hometown and his family. The first half the book was about his childhood in India, and then a decent chunk about his Australian parents and his childhood in Australia, and it ended with about another large section about him reflecting on his trips to India as an adult and what it all means for him. Which means there wasn't a whole lot of time to focus on the search itself.

I didn't dislike that, it just wasn't what I expected going in. It does make sense, though. Pretty much all he did was look at train stations all over India on Google Earth until he found one he recognized. His overall story might be fascinating, but the search itself not so much.

But if you're interested in the story of someone's life, just what they experience and how it's affected them, particularly an adopted child who came from a different country, I would recommend this book. I personally enjoy reading about people's lives, so I quite enjoyed this one. So much of it just seemed like he was a normal guy who coped with things in a very normal way. It wasn't melodramatic in any sense, he was just trying to see where he came from and find his Indian mother again.

I can't really comment on the writing style itself because I only listened to the audiobook and that does remove my ability to notice style in the same way, but as a general whole, I enjoyed it. Brierley got a ghostwriter and I'm always appreciative of when ghostwriters are credited, so extra kudos for that.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. How much of that enjoyment came from the book or the audiobook narrator, I can't say, but either way it was a great experience. I was always excited to get back into it, and there aren't a whole lot of audiobooks I can say that about.