This is the story of Vega, an Indian women who moves to America for an education. You follow Vega as she navigates many friendships, romantic relationships, motherhood, and a career.
Honestly, this book was very slow paced with not much going on. Vega was the main character, but there were many secondary characters and it was hard for me to keep them straight let alone get to know them well. I feel like even with Vega, I didn’t get to know her well, I couldn’t feel her emotions or understand why she made certain decisions.
I did enjoy the bits about the cultural differences between the US and India and navigating a life in America as an immigrant.

Bit of a slow burn. Compelling writing but it meanders a bit at times. However, given this is a debut novel for the author, I only expect some of the rough edges to go away in future works.

A good story overall

kind of a slow burn, but in a really pleasant way; vega is a lovely main character (relatable, interesting, full of nuance), and i liked watching her story unfold a lot! the way she experiences womanhood, grief, queerness, womanhood, etc, were all lovely and poignant and felt true to life. the supporting cast of characters was great, too; even ones who are only around vega for a short time feel impactful and memorable, and i was always really delighted when someone from an earlier portion of the book cropped up.

the writing itself was light-handed and pretty frank, and it took its time getting from point A to point B. it reminded me a lot of the idiot by elif batuman and sally rooney’s entire catalogue—not overly floral, but not rushed, either.

3.5 stars rounded to 3 stars

Habitations is the story of Vega, a woman who leaves her home country of India to study sociology in the United States. She brings with her a burden she has carried for several years—the death of her younger sister from heart disease. Over the next decade we follow Vega as she grapples with this loss along with the challenges of immigration, sexuality, marriage, divorce, single motherhood, family (both blood and otherwise), and what constitutes home.

There was much I liked about the book, but there were also things that compelled me to drop my rating to 3.5 stars. What did I like? The writing is excellent. The thread of the story kept me interested and the heart and core of the book is very good. I love how the author sets a spotlight on the challenges facing immigrants from many different parts of the world as they attempt to assimilate into a new country. This is not easy for Vega. Along the way she has to deal with the political backdrop, culture differences, skin color, language, and other issues. The feature I love the most is the focus on home and family and all of its various forms.

What didn’t I like. I liked Vega, but I didn’t love her. I wish I could have connected more strongly with her. I need a solid connection with the protagonist to really enjoy a novel. There was also a lost chance by the author to teach us about South Indian culture. There are many words, phrases, and types of food that are referred to, but not defined for Americans. I did a lot of searching on my own to find the meanings, but it would have been so helpful to have a definition list so as to not have to continually look things up. I also found myself getting mired in a lot of the sociology speak.

So, a mixed review for me. I do however recommend this novel to readers of literary fiction and memoirs (which this novel resembles) as the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

I would like to thank Net Galley, Simon & Schuster (widget from Danielle Prielipp), and Sheila Sundar for an advanced copy. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

Habitations by Sheila Sundar is a debut novel that tells the story of Vega who is an Indian academic. The story takes us through Vega's move to study in the US and her various experiences as she experiences her coming of age. I especially appreciated the cultural aspects of this novel and seeing the world from Vega's perspective added a layer of understanding around the immigrant experience in the US. The story is well written and it's a book I'm glad I read.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

This is a very special novel. It’s the story of VE-GA, I put the hyphen in the middle because Vega is a woman whose life is a series of choices. She is perpetually split between decisions she must make. She must decide between every part of her life, country, career, sexuality, marriage, divorce, none of the choices easy or clear. All have complications.

Her initial split is the loss of her beloved sister, who was really a part of her. Vega is clearly a brilliant academic who ultimately makes the choice to leave India for study in America. There she is confronted with choices about friends, lovers, husbands and children.

I simply loved her character. Vega has a level of reflection and understanding that is admirable. It is the birth of her daughter that is the catalyst for future life choices. I was especially impressed by her willingness to create a non-traditional family with her ex-husband.

Going from home to home with Vega I was totally captivated by her and her choices. The writing is especially good. I often have a problem with closure in novels, but even the ending is perfect.

I must admit that I did have problems keeping track of all the names, some of which were unfamiliar to me. I highly recommend this beautiful novel to reading groups. There is so much to discuss.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this brilliant debut novel.

I was really taken in by this book. It’s a meandering novel about Vega, a young woman who is suffering the loss of her sister. We follow her through her academic career and into family life, and all the ups and downs that come with it.

(Advanced read from Netgalley) This book left me with mixed feelings. I enjoyed the story, and the story kept me interested to keep reading. I enjoyed the diversity of the characters and the diverse ethnic backgrounds. I also enjoyed how the story took us through the main character's life. As a whole, I enjoyed the writing style of the author. I enjoy reading books written by authors where the characters share their ethnic backgrounds. However, the character development and sharing of the Indian culture with the reader could have been so much more and would have made this book a much better read. I felt like the lack of character development of the main character was what took away from making this book more enjoyable. I don't know why she made the decisions she did, we know very little about her, other than the one tragic event in her life. There was also a lack of effort to bring the reader into the Indian foods, culture, and events described in the book, basically because of a lack of description. Nor was there any effort to explain, the Indian places or words to the reader who may be unfamiliar with the reference (even dropping a footnote would have been helpful). I ended up looking up a lot of the words and places so I could better understand. But there could have been more of an effort to be descriptive so that at least the reader could use contextual clues. While I found the story interesting, there were times when conversations or scenes felt cut short. The ending was disappointing and felt unfinished.

This is a late coming of age story that is so well written covering many relatable topics. I really enjoyed Vega and her story. The author writes with real tenacity and dedication and I'm excited about what she comes up with next. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book for my honest review.

This was not a normal read for me, and at times I found it a bit slow, but all of the cultural aspects of this book were very interesting. Ms. Sundar, with her writing, made it easier to relate to Vega despite our differences throughout the book. It was interesting to hear her take on poverty in the US versus poverty in India.

I’ve never felt so different from a main character, however it was easy to empathize with everything she was thinking and feeling. I did however find Vega’s choices to be frustrating at times.

It was a pleasure to follow Vega on the journey of finding herself, and how she learned that relationships have different meanings and take-aways. It was also interesting to see how grief can be so interwoven into the lives of the people left behind, even many years after the death occurred. I found this aspect highly relatable.

New York, Newark, Chennai, and Cleveland, 1998-2008. There's a sense of melancholy, precarity, and arrested development in this main character and the world she inhabits. I'm impressed with how well the author unspools this narrative over a decade. The flow of time felt natural. On reflection of the novel as a whole, it felt that Vega, our main character, matured and achieved a sense of freedom she had never known in her young and adolescent life but had to gradually learn from others in adulthood. In this slow process of adapting to the ways of adults, Vega gets burned. She is imperfect and sometimes at fault. She takes risks before she knows what she is getting into, often because she must, and for that she is brave.

This book poses many complicated questions in subtle, artful ways: the ethics of love when it is entwined with citizenship and opportunity; how to responsibly handle the baggage of privilege; the significance of ephemeral and temporary relationships; and of course the politics of globalization at the cusp of the twenty-first century. There were some edgy moments in the scenes covering 9/11; the author briefly points to, but doesn't really explore, how the attack was deserved. I understand that the characters in this moment were hurting, and these are expressions of their pain. I can imagine these complicated expressions were widely felt in NYC immediately after the attacks, and for that reason the text came alive to me. It made me realize how remorse, pain, and guilt are at the center of this novel.

"Pleasant" is the wrong word to describe this reading experience, but I felt driven to see what Vega would do in her adulthood and what she would make of her life. This meditative, melancholy novel shows talent and promise.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster, as well as NetGalley, for the opportunity to read this beautifully written novel ahead of its anticipated publish date of April 2024.

We follow an Indian immigrant, Vega Gopalan, as she navigates through life’s ups and downs as a young academic and single mother in New York. This book was a blessing to read. I felt like I was able to connect with and understand Vega in so many ways as a woman, while learning how incredibly different our lives are due to the cultures that we grew up in.

I highly recommend this book for anybody who isn’t afraid to laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time.

Wow! What a debut novel. This will definitely be a talked about and must-read book for 2024. A late coming of age story that is so well written covering many relatable topics. I really enjoyed Vega and her story.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster, NetGalley, and Sheila Sundar for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a little slow moving for me. But I did find the character development interesting. The plot seemed slow at times and then seemed to skip large segments of time at others.

A deeply thoughtful book about Vega Gopalan — an Indian academic (Sociology) who immigrates to the U.S. and shares her introspective take on all her observations of life for herself and the people she meets. Pervading her experiences is the memory of her sister who died at 14 from a disease that would have been easily detectable (and treatable) had she been born in the U.S.
The writing is beautiful, with a talent for capturing complex feelings and thoughts in a few apt phrases. I was impressed by all of the topics discussed in the pages - none with heavy agendas and all with the kind of verbal interactions that show several individuals tackling a topic from multiple personal contexts rather than pulling the latest PC verbiage from a shelf.
I enjoyed reading the book, but it was one of those books that I found become more interesting the more I thought about it *after* I finished it. I felt exposed to the multi-faceted reality behind the academic reports, news coverage, and general stereotypes through a stream of social commentary that pertained to individuals in groups, rather than groups as a whole. And lots of stereotype smashing roles - her characters were all influenced by their cultures and backgrounds, but never defined by them. Every time I assumed it would go in a predictable direction it didn't. Definitely worth reading.

I started this book and didn’t want to put it down! I enjoyed how the author presented Vega’s journey moving from India to the US and how she navigated her new reality. I also really enjoyed the flashbacks because they were not long-winded and tied really well with the story.

The secondary characters in this story were also favorites. But my most favorite part was the developing of the new family dynamics after a divorce.

Great debut!

This is a really spectacular debut, a somewhat delayed coming of age about a young Indian woman navigating life and it's various attachments after she moves from India to the United States. It's told and written in several sections, which is a smart move as it helps the book feel a little more defined. I think a lot about books that are universally relatable while having a specific cultural lens, and this is a great example of that. Vega is experiencing many things that a lot of us have: first love, first heartbreak, an affair, parenthood, career moves, but she's doing it as an Indian immigrant in the US, which infuses a really vivid viewpoint into all of these things.

The con, as with many debuts, is that it's too long and I sometimes got lost in the prose. But overall, it's a really fantastic book and one I think will have a lot of fans. 4 stars. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

"Habitations" by Sheila Sundar is a novel that follows the journey of Vega Gopalan, a young academic who moves from South India to the United States to attend graduate school at Columbia University. Vega is still grappling with the death of her sister, and her life takes her through various worlds, including the striving atmosphere of academia, the intellectual isolation of immigrant suburbs, and the challenges of single motherhood.

The narrative delves into Vega's experiences as she navigates different relationships, exploring themes of identity, immigration, expectation, desire, and the profound question of what it means to make a home. The birth of Vega's daughter becomes a pivotal moment that prompts reflection on the concept of home. The novel is characterized by dry humor, searing insight, and a deep exploration of womanhood.

"Habitations" offers a universal story that goes beyond cultural and geographical boundaries, addressing the complex ways in which women navigate multiple loyalties—to family, community, and themselves. The novel is described as a profound meditation on the many meanings of home and a reflection on how love and kinship can be discovered, even in unfamiliar places.

Sheila Sundar emerges as an electrifying new voice in literary fiction, bringing immediacy, warmth, and wry humor to a narrative that explores the complexities of Vega's life and the broader themes it encompasses.

Interesting story, written OK, but not really for me. Interesting view on culture and family. Good luck with the book

The book really read more like a memoir than a novel. Very full of interior lives and observations rather than a huge plot. Great for people who like middle of life coming of age novels or slice-of-life stories because she felt like a real character and the topics (inclusion, relationships) seemed fresh and modern.