The Best At It

The Best At It by Maulik Pancholy   336 pages

Rahul (pronounced Ra-hool) Kapoor is a young man of East Indian descent living in Indiana in the U.S.   His parents are both doctors and he has many Aunties and Uncles both family and honorary in his life.   Rahul is going into the seventh grade and it is a very anxious time for him.   More peer pressure, more expectations he is putting on himself to fit in as there is only one other student at his school who is from India and that student still has an accent and is the butt of ethnic stereotypes at school.   Rahul has no accent, his family has been in the United States since before he was born and he is Indian-American but basically he considers himself to be just another American.   That is until the school bully, Brent Miller starts picking on him with racist slurs and rude actions maligning the Indian people, Bollywood, etc.   Rahul would do just about anything to fit in and while he is a thin not too athletically built boy, he would do just about anything to fit in so people wouldn't make him feel so different.   So much so that he is talked into trying out for the football team which fortunately for him was a wash out.   When the opportunity comes to audition for a local bank's t.v. commercial he gets so nervous he sweats through his clothes beforehand and his best friend, Chelsea tries to put some make-up on his face to make it look less shiny and soak up some of the sweat.   Unfortunately the makeup is too light for his fleshtone and while he thinks that is a good thing it will make him fit in more with lighter skin it actaully worked against him by caking up and flaking off and just looking weird - then too when he got to the audition he took his bestie in with him instead of his mother (mistake) who got the already somewhat hostile banker leading the audition to completely ignore him and tell him he wasn't what they were looking for.   He accepted their decision but his bestie got all bent out of shape and told his mother what they said.  Rahul just wanted to go home and get out of his sweaty outfit and wash the caked make up off but his mother incensed by the bankers' prejudice told them a thing or two and later his parents moved their bank accounts from that bank to another.   Rajul's grandfather advised him find something you are good at then practice until you become the best at it.   That will make people respect him his grandfather said and help him to feel more comfortable.  Rajul couldn't seem to find his niche and developed anxiety attacks and obsessive compulsive disorder tendencies from his stress levels.   Chelsea advised him that he was good at math why not join the Math Team competing against other schools for State and hopefully National Championship?   He fought against it for a long time thinking it would just make him look that much more nerdy and Brent would really give him a hard time then.  Finally he caves in and joins.    Much more happens with happy and bittersweet moments all while staring at Justin Emery who he can't decide if he wants to be him (Justin) or if maybe, he likes him.   Life is so hard for Rajul but help is all around him and he has more friends than enemies if he will just let them in.   Very good story, deeper and with more plot twists than I first realized.   I would recommend this book to anyone probably 3rd grade to adult.   There are many fun conversations and a lot of information on the Indian culture to be learned here.   Good book.