Lion (aka A Long Way Home) by Saroo Brierley

From Amazon

The extraordinary story of a boy who lost his mother, and twenty-five years later found her on Google.

Five-year-old Saroo's elder brothers worked as sweepers in local trains to help their struggling

mother. One day, they took him with them, but exhausted little Saroo fell asleep on a train. When

he awoke, he was in Calcutta, surrounded by a crowd of strangers. Saroo, poor and illiterate,

neither knew his last name nor that of the town he came from. In a single night he had lost his

entire family and joined Calcutta's countless children who had nowhere to call home.

Saroo's story tells of his childhood in Khandwa, in Madhya Pradesh, and his days as a street boy in

Calcutta; of his miraculous adoption by an Australian couple and, twenty-five years after losing her,

Saroo's search for his mother - via Google - and their ultimate reunion. Moving and inspiring,

Lion: A Long Way Home, is an unforgettable story.

My thoughts

I gave this a 3 stars or 6/10. This was one of my local Library Reading group reads.

I wanted to like this more than I did, but I felt that it was a little lacking if I'm honest I was expecting more from this. I felt that it read too much like a story rather than a non fiction book.

I can only imagine the heartache that Saroo experienced as a young child finding himself all alone at such a young age and he seemed incredibly fortunate that things turned out reasonably well for him, as his fate could so easily have been sealed so differently.

What determination he had to try and find his real family back in India and the time he must have spent trying to locate the area that he lived in.

I've not seen the film based on Saroo's life, but I've been led to believe that it's portrayed as far more harrowing than the book portrays it.