Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2023
352 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A pulsating debut about an immigrant family that gets caught in the middle of a criminal investigation, perfect for readers of Everything I Never Told You and Ask Again, Yes.
Babur "Bobby" Singh, single parent and owner of fledging Uber business "Move with Bobby," remains ever hopeful about ascending the ladder of American success. He lives in an affluent suburb of New York with his daughter Angie, an introverted teenager who is uncomfortable in her own skin unless she's swimming.
During summer break, Angie is walking home after training at the high school pool when she finds Henry McCleary, a classmate from a wealthy, prominent family, stabbed and bleeding on the football field. The police immediately focus their investigation on Chiara Thompkins, a runaway Black girl who disappears after the stabbing and—it's later discovered—wasn't properly enrolled in the public high school.
The incident sends shock waves through the community and reveals jarring truths about the lengths to which families will go to protect themselves. As the town fractures, Angie must navigate conflicting narratives and wrestle with her own moral culpability. Meanwhile, Babur's painstaking efforts to shield Angie and protect his hard-earned efforts to assimilate overshadow his ability to see right from wrong.
Alternating between multiple perspectives, Our Best Intentions is a suspenseful drama about a father and daughter re-examining their familial bonds and place in the community. Both a gripping page-turner and an intimate portrait of an immigrant family, Vibhuti Jain's provocative debut explores how easily friendships, careers, communities, and individual lives can unravel when the toxicity of privilege and racial bias are exposed.
"Jain's riveting debut centers on a stabbing at a high school… Jain excels at revealing each character's motivations and fears, and at how easily the truth can be distorted. This page-turner will stay with readers." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This moving, thought-provoking debut will be a hit with book clubs, and fans of Celeste Ng should take note." - Booklist (starred review)
"Jain tackles the novel's themes effectively and subtly for the most part, especially in the beginning. The final chapters seem rushed, diluting the complexity and drama that made the first two-thirds so riveting and resulting in a too-tidy ending. A powerful, story-driven exploration of some of today's most pressing social issues." - Kirkus Reviews
"With subtlety, humor and piercing insight, Vibhuti Jain creates a propulsive page-turner that will touch your heart. This is a gorgeous and complex exploration of race, immigration and class wrapped up in a thrilling story you won't be able to put down. A must-read!" - Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee
"Our Best Intentions, the lyrical debut by Vibhuti Jain, is equal parts suspense and the best kind of literary fiction. Centered on the assault of a wealthy teen by a Black classmate, this novel is a heartbreaking story of class, family, and the tragedy that often occurs when the two intersect." - Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell
This information about Our Best Intentions was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Vibhuti ("Vib") Jain lives with her husband and daughter in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she works in international development. She began her career as a corporate lawyer in New York City. She holds degrees from Yale University and Harvard Law School. She grew up in Guilford, Connecticut. Our Best Intentions is her first novel.
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