The setting of this book was within a pizzeria.
This is a character driven book.
I loved this book. The writing was beautiful. The characters were developed and interesting.

This book is an important read as it touches upon such serious issues; a variety of people working in a pizzeria, most of them illegal immigrants because of war or human rights violations. The characters in this were brilliantly written and it’s a very thought provoking book. But there was something that just missed the mark for me and I felt the impact could have been so much more. I felt the bigger message could have been so much more than it was when the book ended.

I can't quite decide how I felt about this book. It's an easy read – I whipped through it in one sitting – and it casts light on an experience we don't often get to see, but didn't really feel satisfied or particularly emotionally moved at the end. It is in essence a character study, of main characters Nia and Shan but also of the cast that surrounds them at the Vesuvio Pizzeria, allowing their personalities and their experiences to shine through rather than a high-stakes plot. This is a short book – 256 pages according to Amazon – so I think the issue I found comes from that. I would have liked to see more development of these characters, to know and understand them better, to feel like the ending was earned in emotional pay-off.

I really enjoyed this book. It takes you into the world of immigration in London, mainly illegal immigration. It's writtten very vividly and I was captivated from the start. Highly reccomend this one.

Thank you to the publisher for my eARC copy of this book. Unfortunately I didn’t love this book and therefore didn’t finish, I just didn’t connect with this one. Not for me, sorry.

A poignant look into the lives of 'illegal' immigrants in London. I love the setting of this book - around one restaurant and it's people - it recreates the insular feeling that many migrants must feel in a city and country where they have to stay under the radar to survive.

this is one i've been wanting to read for ages and it didn't disappoint

centred around a pizza restaurant in london it follows nia, a half indian half welsh 19 year old from wales, and shan, a man from sri lanka who is seeking asylum and trying to get his wife and son into the country safely. the real story however is around the restaurant manager and the lengths he goes for his employees

i really loved the way everyone was described, how you really felt for them all in this tiny haven that seems almost too good to be true. it was bleak and sad and yet there were moments of hope and joy that you cling to.

i really loved this!

“𝘐𝘯 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘸 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦?”

Set in south-west London, we follow stories of legal and illegal immigrant employees of a pizzeria hiding their past, struggling to live normally and yearning for a sense of belonging.

Tuli (restaurant owner) is a mysterious and generous Tamilian who grew up in Singapore. He selflessly helps everyone monetarily and protects the needy from the UK legal system. No one knows why and how he manages to do so.

Nia (waitress) born to a Welsh mother and Bengali father decides to run away from her abusive household and lands in Tuli’s restaurant.

Shan (pizza chef) lives under constant fear of being deported to Sri Lanka. He takes extreme measures to reunite with his family and bring them safely to London.

You People is a thrilling story narrated from two perspectives, Nia and Shan. All characters are well developed and it felt like I was watching a movie owing to Lalwani’s captivating writing.

Many instances subtly articulated the idea of racism that a privileged person might not understand in the first place. For example, Nia being mixed-raced ultimately switches to recognizing substantial issues of undocumented masses through Shan’s viewpoint.

This was my first time reading about the Sri Lankan Civil War which was described by the Tamilian chefs. It wasn't accentuated at length but well enough to give a firm background.

Read it for a wider outlook on immigrant experiences and if you love character-driven stories!

Heart-wrenchingly beautiful and full of emotion, yet set in the humdrum everyday of a restaurant and an ordinary street. YOU PEOPLE is such an important book for promoting empathy and understanding of others’ struggles, portraying kindness side-by-side with brute force and harsh words. It explores immigration, addiction, suffering and abuse, and asks all-important and timely questions about helping, interference and charity. In a world that feels extremely cruel, the book implores us to look for our shared humanity and the preciousness of those we love.

An excellent insight into a world we usually never see. Beautifully written and characters well developed throughout. A very good read.

Great read, opens your eyes to a society you may not know or understand. Definitely one to recommend.

Take one Italian restaurant, pour in a mysterious owner, a portion of waitresses, a generous helping of chefs, who may or may not all be undocumented migrants in fear of police raids, and bring to boil... I’m not sure how a novel set mainly in a family-style restaurant also serves up some major thriller vibes, but Nikita Lalwani’s You People certainly hits the spot.

South London’s ‘Pizzeria Vesuvio’ is not your typical Italian, and neither are its workers. The viewpoint alternates between Nia, a young Welsh waitress who’s dropped out of uni and run away from her troubled mum and little sister, and Shan, a Tamil chef who has paid to be smuggled into the UK after escaping persecution in Sri Lanka, but is desperate to be reunited with his wife and child. As the narrative baton is passed back and forth between the two, we also learn more about the people around them, not least of all their charismatic boss Tuli, and our questions pile up. For example, why is Nia reluctant to see her family again? Why does Shan feel guilty about leaving his? Why is Tuli so eager to help all the misfits who come to him for aid? How well can we ever know and trust a person? What are we prepared to do in order to survive in a hostile world?

This sensitivity to the hostilities of our world is apparent across the author’s wider work. Born in Rajasthan, raised in Cardiff and based in London, Nikita’s fiction has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and has won the Desmond Elliott Prize, and she donated the latter’s prize money to the human rights charity, Liberty. You People is Nikita’s third novel, and it is a thoughtful exploration of identity, belonging, family and even food, and there is much humour as well as tension. For example, Nia suspects that she was only hired to work at the pizzeria because she looks a bit Italian. However she is simply ‘the white Brit waitress’ to Shan, until he is delighted to find out that she is mixed race (Indian father), and even offers to cook her a dish not on the menu, something with ‘masala and chilli’. Soon, these (arbitrary) borders and boundaries blur as they meet more of Tuli’s network and things come to a head when all three are forced to confront danger and weigh up who they can trust and why.

A compelling and compassionate novel that questions how we see and treat each other, You People lingers long after you’ve read it. We at Desi Reads recommend it!

My thanks to Netgalley and to Penguin Books for the opportunity to read and review this book. Set in Contemporary London, pre Pandemic, the focus of this novel is the Pizzeria Vesuvio and the people who work there. Some are UK nationals, living with their own issues and some are living and working in London, but in fear of being discovered as not having the legal right to do this. The impact of this is vividly depicted and is a good reminder that most of us live a very secure life. The issues around illegal movement into the UK, the way in which people attempting to leave other countries and come here are predated upon by unscrupulous individuals is well depicted and presented sympathetically.

The characters in the novel are well drawn and believable, although the motives driving the central figure of Tuli are never really clarified. The essential question of how far people might be prepared to go, to ensure that they can stay in a country they find safe is very well explored.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley.

Told from the perspective of two key protagonists who work together in a restaurant in London, it was a moving book.

It looks at the interlinking lives of a group of workers with different journeys that led them all to the restaurant; touching heavily upon immigration, migrants, trafficking, hardship, poverty, and race.

It made me reflect on how everyone’s life story is different, yet so many people have similar struggles regardless of their heritage or background.

This has definite ambitions to be a state-of-the-nation novel, although its focus is narrow enough (one pizzeria in South London; two point of view characters, Welsh waitress Nia and Sri Lankan pizza chef Shan) that it might be more productive to read it as a London novel. Shan has left behind his wife and child, and is both horribly ashamed and desperate to get them to England; Nia, who’s fled an alcoholic mother, is determined to get to the bottom of restauranteur Tuli’s not-so-legal extracurricular activities (he operates the pizzeria like a safe house for undocumented asylum-seekers). The ending is a touch sentimental, but it provides satisfying narrative closure, and Lalwani’s depiction of the “hostile environment” is thoroughly terrifying.

My thanks to Penguin Books U.K. Viking for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘You People’ by Nikita Lalwani in exchange for an honest review. It was published in April 2020. My apologies for the late feedback.

‘Welcome to the magic of Vesuvio!’

‘You People’ opens in 2003 and is set primarily around the Pizzeria Vesuvio, which appears like any other Italian restaurant in London. Yet its chefs are Sri Lankan and half of the kitchen staff are illegal immigrants. Its charismatic proprietor is Tuli, a man always willing to help anyone in need.

Into his orbit comes nineteen-year old Nia Walker, whose absentee father was Bengali and mother Welsh. She is running away from her alcoholic mother and is taken on as a waitress. Another of Tuli’s employees is Shan, seeking asylum after fleeing the Sri Lankan civil war, and desperate to reunite with his family that he was forced to leave behind.

Tuli ends up leading them into dangerous territory as aspects of his mysterious operation unravels.

This is not a comfortable novel to read as it holds a mirror up to our society especially given that it takes place in 2003 before xenophobia reached its current levels.

It has been endorsed by Kamila Shamsie, one of my favourite authors, with the statement: ‘an exceptional novel about the Britain we live in, even if we choose not to see it'.

This is quite a traditional narrative with the viewpoints moving between Shan and Nia with a much appreciated epilogue.

It took me a while to feel engaged with this novel but once I was drawn into the lives of Nikita Lalwani’s characters then it proved impossible for me to stop reading. Yes, there are elements of suspense linked to Tuli’s shady activities but more importantly I became invested in the lives of her characters.

I feel that it would make a good choice for reading groups given its accessibility, excellent writing and inclusion of social issues providing plenty of material for discussion.

Overall, an engaging work of literary fiction addressing important issues.

Actual rating 3.5 - a beautifully written and timely novel about living in modern Britain, with a big focus on illegal immigration. This novel centres around Pizzeria Vesuvio - an Italian restaurant run by the enigmatic Tuli, a real modern day Robin Hood who takes in and helps those who would struggle for compassion elsewhere. We meet Shan, who has recently escaped Sri Lanka without his wife and child in fear for his life, and Nia, a young Welsh/Indian woman escaping an alcoholic and abusive mother. Lalwani manages to use Tuli as a centre to connect all these characters, despite never using him as the narrator - if anything this is one of the few criticisms I have as I wanted to know so much more of Tuli’s story.
There were moments where a few things felt unsaid or unfinished to me, but overall this is a poignant exploration of the kind of atrocities that make people leave their homeland in search of a brighter future, and the ignorance and lack of kindness they receive when they arrive. Whilst perhaps not the most gripping read, this felt like a really important one for our time, and had a wonderful cast of characters who I would love to meet again!

Set in and around 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 toxic home environment and Shan, a Sri Lankan Tamil fleeing persecution and desperately trying to reconnect with his wife and son; living in fear of discovery and deportation.

Themes of illegal immigration, identity and the past are deftly woven throughout this book. It also asks us to think about the reasons that people have to help others; whether it is motivated by a sense of humanity or personal gain.

Beautifully written, the character backstories are heartbreaking and this book gives us a glimpse into the lives of the people running the behind the scenes London that allow us to enjoy the city.

This is a beautifully written book about a heartbreaking and difficult subject. The action centres on a Pizza Parlour where the kind hearted, generous owner employs several illegal immigrants and protects and helps waifs and strays. The point of view shifts between several of the workers including Nia, a young Welsh woman who has fled her alcoholic mother but feels torn about leaving her young sister. The fear, the lack of hope, the genuine goodness but also the hate and humiliation, is all well covered and the narrative is funny, is sad, is shocking but is never preachy.

Ms Lalwani manages brilliantly to somehow draw you in so you care about these individuals but at the same time making you question your views on “illegals”. The reasons are myriad and I think it is inappropriate to judge but having read this novel I am certainly more sympathetic to the individuals who may have fled horrendous situations and spend their time hiding, being taken advantage of and desperate for reconnection with loved ones.

This is an excellent novel introducing you to a world you may never have been aware of and it will leave you thinking and reading news stories slightly differently. How powerful is that?

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Hard and unkind world. Good and evil. Moral and ethical questions. Immigrations and people smuggling. Important issues in these times.

Very emotional.