Our Beautiful Boys

by Sameer Pandya

When the star players on a high school football team are accused of violence by another student, their secrets—and the secrets of their parents—threaten to shatter their entire community in a gripping novel of race, class, and privilege from the author of Members Only.

Vikram Shastri has always been a good kid. He’s got a 4.3 GPA, listens to his parents, barely hits the parties, and is on track for college. But when he gets the chance to play on his high school football team, his world suddenly starts to shift. Basking in their recent victory, Vikram and his teammates, Diego and MJ, attend the famed party at the Southern California cave and find themselves lost in the dark of night, carried away by male bravado, with a classmate who has annoyed them their whole lives.

But when the kid emerges with injuries that prove to be more serious than the all-star boys intended, they are suspended from the rest of the season and the boys’ parents are brought in to mitigate the situation. As the parents try to protect their kids, they’re also managing their own midlife crises—from failing businesses and fake identities and alienation. While the parents work together, and against, each other to figure out the truth of that night, the boys must come to terms with how much of their own secrets they’re willing to reveal to clear their names.

Insightful and deeply human, The Boys explores class, race, education, and privilege and the games the world makes each of us play.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Sports, Book Club, Race

400 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2025

About the author

Sameer Pandya is the author of the story collection THE BLIND WRITER, which was longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award. He is also the recipient of the PEN/Civitella Fellowship. His fiction, commentary, and cultural criticism has appeared in a range of publications, including the Atlantic, Salon, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and Narrative Magazine. He teaches creative writing and South Asian and Asian American literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. MEMBERS ONLY is his first novel.

Reviews

[Debra - can't post any comments on site today grrr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boys will be boys.......Ever hear that saying? Our Beautiful Boys touches on many subjects through the telling of what happened one evening after a football game. One fateful evening, the team's star players, Vikram, Diego and MJ are accused of seriously injuring another teammate, Stanley.

While looking at what occurred that evening, the three teens are suspended from school while their parents scramble to protect and defend their sons. The teens come from good yet differing family situations. They had not planned for what happened that and that night while partying all hope for the best possible outcome.

This book touches on how well we know those in our lives. How well do we know our children, our spouses, or parents? What happens when those in our lives disappoint us, make bad choices, use bad judgement? This book also touches on class, expectations, marriage, secrets, fitting in, lies, sports, expectations, privilege, and friendship.

This is a timely and thought-provoking book which has both the reader and the characters questioning what happened and how things would be resolved. I enjoyed the tension and the underlying feeling of unease that resulted from the events of the night and actions in question.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC for review. To be published March 18, 2025.

4 stars.

Vikram Shastri is an Indian-American teenage teen and has always been a good, studious kid, 4.6 GPA, great SAT scores, prepping a good college resume - a parents’ dream. Then during his junior year he’s tapped to play the last few game of his high school’s football season…and it changes everything.

The story follows Vikram and his teammates Diego Cruz, son of a single mom college professor and author and MJ Berringer, white, committed to Yale and part of a very traditional family. The three attend a party after a football victory and get carried away; they beat up an annoying classmate. What seems to be a blip turns into much more as the parents try to protect the boys and their futures.

Quick aside, boy does this author hate the South. I started to take it personally.

The book is really intriguing and would be great for book clubs as there are many avenues for discussion and thoughts may change somewhat depending on the population of the place you live, I think. Well written and excellent concept, a little like OUR BOYS. Very strong four star read. Highly recommended.

[Tell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this! Moved briskly and was a fascinating look at a particular type of casual racism in a small California community. I think one of the plotlines was incredibly fascinating and deserved so much more time- I think Pandya wanted to wrestle with something much thornier, and I wish the book had been about adults and kept the kids as unknowable ciphers.

[Lisa Gilbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of three high school boys who were smart, driven, came from good families, and made one wrong decision that could derail everything they’ve worked for.

When MJ, Diego and Vikram make the ill-conceived decision to attend a party, things took a turn and one boy was seriously injured while the three of them were accused of attacking him. The three of them were suspended from school and their parents had to get involved in order to get them back on track. Somebody was lying and the truth was out there.

This story is about so much more than a high school fight. It’s about race, class, privilege and who would go the furthest to protect their child. Each family was dealing with one hardship or another and, on top of that, they needed to save their child.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were all flawed but that’s what made it so good. I highly recommend this book. Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC.

[Victoria Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine for this advance readers copy, in exchange for an honest review. At its surface, Our Beautiful Boys is a story that is trying to uncover the truth about one night gone awry among a group of high school friends— MJ, Vikram, and Diego— who had an altercation with another student at a party, but later emerged with serious injuries and accusations. However, there is so much beneath this surface level story as the author delves into the background stories of our three main characters and their parents, as they all collectively interact throughout the book. There is a fair bit of exposition in the book before we arrive at the aforementioned event that kicks the main events off and this sets the rest of the story up well to keep you questioning and considering the nuances at play here.

Overall, I enjoyed this book but, did struggle to get into it. There were unlikable aspects of all characters, in my opinion, which I can personally struggle with. But, I think this served to demonstrate the author’s point about the multi-faceted nature of people in general and especially when it comes to sensitive topics like race, class, etc.

The author does discuss many complex issues throughout this book including race, class, privilege, etc. and they are woven into the story well from the beginning. There are many conflicts introduced throughout the story and it is clear that all of the parents and children have their own internal battles that they are combatting as they deal with the central conflict. I appreciated how these questions and considerations were reflected across different age groups and the generational impact of certain choices over time.

There is a lot to discuss here and I think this would be a great book club book. Fans of this author’s previous work should definitely pick this one up and I look forward to seeing what others think when it is published!

[Kasa Cotugno]

While I enjoyed the flow of this story, I can't say I responded as well to the content. Three teenagers are accused of seriously injuring a classmate at a post-game party that gets rambunctious. Haven't we heard this before? What sets this apart is the racial mix of the boys involved, their home lives, that as much ink is spent on the parents and their motivations and lives as the boys. After all, the title seems to tilt in that direction in that it specifies the parents. I did finish, found the conclusion satisfying. But found the bulk of the book repetitious and padded.

[Marcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing and boring. Promoted as a meditation on race, class, and masculinity this offered no new thoughts or insights, just the same tired old tropes and stereotypes. We are to believe that smart, accomplished, academically driven Vikram suddenly, by dint of an amazing football feat (how he got there is just unlikely and ridiculous) embraces the macho camaraderie and violence of football, which enables him to commit violence off the field. Just absurd. Diego as no real agency. MJ is written as some latter-day hippie who goes barefoot at school and restaurants (yeah, sure) and bemoans his privilege, yet as he moves into the shed on his parents’ property he still relies on his parents while he eats his mom’s homemade organic PB&J sandwiches. The people in this book aren’t characters, they’re caricatures. The set up was promising, three high school boys of different ethnicities and class commit a violent act against another student. The ensuing efforts to get to the truth of what happened and the concerns and responses of their families and the school principal provide the main narrative. Ultimately there is no insight gained and no lessons learned. The background info on the lives/thoughts/feelings of the parents was excessive and distracting. The scene at the dinner party hosted by MJ’s parents that involved them maneuvering quarters with their butt cheeks was the epitome of absurdity - was this supposed to be comic relief? It was completely against the here-to-fore depiction of their characters. I feel bamboozled by the accolades and am sorry I wasted my time and money.

[Stacy40pages · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya. Thanks to @randomhouse for the gifted Arc ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Three good students and athletes find themselves in trouble after a party and a classmate who has annoyed them their entire childhoods ends up severely injured.

I found this a thought provoking read and liked that we got a real inside look at the boys and their lives. I also felt the frustrations of the parents and principal. I myself became frustrated at all the back and forth, but we will get the true story in the end. I really enjoyed this read and the characters, except I could not stand Veronica.. ugh.

“Sometimes it’s hard to know the difference between what we want them to be and who they end up being.”

Our Beautiful Boys comes out 3/18.

[Vegannic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off with so much potential to be a really good book and then it just went a bit weak. Too much about the parents when I felt it would have been more of a story to focus on the boys and what actually happened in the cave. The ending was kinda OK and I almost gave it a 4.
Read as part of the Goodreads challenges for the Heritage Read celebrating Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and highly recommend the audio version. It was like a perfect blend of Beartown and Friday Night Lights. The story centers around three teenage football players and a tragic event that happens at a party, which totally changes their lives. As a mom of a teenage boy, I could totally relate to this contemporary sports/family fiction novel. The book also explores the lives of the parents, each from a different socioeconomic and cultural background. Each parent is dealing with the events affecting their sons, as well as their own career and personal struggles. The book is super gripping and keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. While most of the book is serious, there are also some funny moments. I found most of the characters pretty likable, but a few just made me want to roll my eyes because of their awful personalities. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has teenagers, especially those who play competitive sports. I can totally see this book being made into a TV show!

[Casey Woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pandya seamlessly writes from the perspectives of all the characters, male and female, old and young without vilifying or sanctifying any one character. Every character is portrayed with nuance—their inner dialogue earnestly expressed with no subject being taboo. This book explores adolescence, marriage, violence, race, and class all while leaving the reader captivated by the classic question “whodunnit”? The best fiction book I’ve read in a long, long time.

[Poonam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freakin' loved this. 4.5

[Ashley Urquhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested enough in this book to keep reading, but I really did feel like I had to drag myself through some parts. Overall, I found it hard to really care about any of the characters. There are no heroes here and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be rooting for anyone? But honestly, I wasn’t.

I felt like the book was written well and so from that standpoint I don’t feel comfortable dropping it below a 3, but I also can’t say I found the reading experience all that enjoyable. The only issue I had with the writing is that from paragraph to paragraph the perspective would suddenly change. We’d be in Veronica’s head and then all of the sudden it’s MJ.

I did think this book was an interesting viewpoint on race relations and there are a lot of topics that I think can and should be discussed. I’m not sure about the depiction of an American public high school experience though. Granted, I didn’t spend a ton of time at my high school and I’m not a boy, but I’m not sure how fraught the bathrooms at my high school were? And the proximity to all of that violence had an effect on the boys, but especially Vikram. For me, that felt inauthentic, but I’ve just had my own lived experience so I can’t say for sure.

Overall, the writing was good, but this one just wasn’t for me.

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Akshay Krishnamani · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was ok. a little on the nose at times and personally i felt like a lot of loose ends were either left hanging or lazily tied up, but i think the underlying story and message is solid. the book did keep my invested and i thought the writing was good. my rating may be subject to change after discussing idkidk.

[Timothy Misner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book was really a page-turner. The depiction of the banter between Stanley, the kid that gets beat up, and the other kids was marvelous--you really hated the kid that and felt "he had it coming". You feel the righteousness and then you experience the downsides. 2nd half of the book had too much plot and plot twists for my taste. Too much over the top instead of keeping it grounded and real people--though the Gita and Gautam felt to me very realistic.

[Ashley]

What I loved most about this is how clearly Sameer Pandya's background in cultural studies, specifically cultural dislocation, shined through.

At times I felt the novel was a little all over the place, some additions unnecessary in my opinion. I'm also not a huge fan of long books, so it could be my bias.

{Thank you bunches to Sameer Pandya, Ballantine Books, Random House Group and NetGalley for the DRC in exchange for my honest review!}

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Between the tension and taut atmosphere in parts of this book and an experience that shook the lives of several families, I felt a wondrous experience from reading this book. The writing, the characters, and the themes in this book are profound. Sameer Pandya’s book revolves around many problematics in our modern world: alienation, violence, bullying, and racial profiling to just name a few. This modern fable is a fabulous read.

[Monicaa1610 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book by a UCSB professor!! It's nice to be able to support local authors and be connected to my alma mater. I love a contemporary fiction and while I initially thought we were just going to be following the three boys we actually followed their families as well. Seeing the familial dynamics and hearing the different prospective from each family member was cool to analyze and intertwine with the actions of their kids. Especially when you are a teenager!! Your family shapes so much of who you are and your aspirations. The dads PMO so bad they are so selfish and did not appreciated how the moms were treated, everyone always blames the mothers 3. But it overall felt like a real life depiction of an incident!! I highly enjoyed it.

[Julie Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book on a whim at the library, needing something to read but not knowing anything about it.
I loved it from the first page!
I was quickly drawn into the story of the boys wanting to play football and then appreciated the layers of complexity their parents brought.
The action all seemed believable.
They kept posing that Vikram, the boy of Indian descent, would face the most discrimination. I think this was written shortly after 9/11, because now the Mexican kid, Diego, would have faced the most discrimination.
The stories wrapped up logically, but the last couple chapters were not as much fun to read as the unwinding of the tale.
Highly recommend!

[Leslie Boren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this novel about race and class told through the players on a high school football team. It is much bigger than the football. The characters are all flawed and face their own assumptions and struggles. It is also about parents wanting to only see the good in our children and sometimes doing things for the best reasons that are all wrong. Ultimately, it is the realization that in many ways we are made by all the people who come before us. I recommend this one.

[Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most books that take place in middle school or high school focus predominantly on the students or the parents. This book gives the reader a more complete picture by spreading the story between the three students and their parents. Nice job creating the right amount of tension and keeping the reader waiting to find out the details of the incident at the heart of this story.

[Steve Haft · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fight involving three high school football players roils their families and threatens to ruin their futures. Clever narration maintains mystery around the central event, but the stakes are relatively low. I felt that the author kind of loses his way in focusing on the parents, who are less interesting than the kids, and their problems are also fairly low stakes.

[Gussy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, well written for the most parts but I thought it could’ve been a lot shorter. Some bits just dragged on and on, too much of over explaining rather than showing in terms of emotions and decisions made and Veronica’s story is very similar to another lady’s I read about recently (also a professor) so that similarity was interesting.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. There’s a lot to unpack in this story about violent and traumatic incident involving four teenage boys. It touches on class, race, identity, family and more. I thought it was well done and the “mystery” element was compelling, but somehow it didn’t really move me emotionally.

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book about culture, family and the amazing love between family and their sons, especially between mums and their sons. It’s the first book I’ve read which talked about American footy that I really enjoyed.

[rory · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.75

[Niki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let’s just say I could tell what generation the author is from- and not in a good way.

The book tries to do a lot, and might have been better if it was a little less in your face with its opinions and had half the number of story lines.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya is one of my favorite reads this year. The story is intriguing and thought-provoking. It follows Vikram Shastri, a smart and well-behaved student who is selected to play in the final few football games of the high school season. He’s on track for college, and everything seems to be in place for him and his parents’ wishes. However, joining the football team also leads him to interact with other high school kids he doesn’t usually hang out with. He’s invited to a party where there is a cave up the hill.

At the party, there’s another student who is highly annoying, almost to the point of being a bully. Vikram and two of his football teammates end up in the darkness of the cave, along with the annoying student, where they accidentally rough him up a bit too much. This student is seriously injured, and this is where the parents step in to investigate the truth and protect their sons.

The story moves at a steady pace, and the characters are well-developed. Overall, it’s a great read. Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions shared are influenced by nothing other than my own reading experience.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good story- lots of nuanced expolration of teen boy life and parent expectations. Lost me a little toward the end but it picked back up

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was well written but a bit light plot wise, I expected a lot more to happen. I predicted most of the twists and the characters were all pretty stereotypical. This was a good book but could easily have been a great book with some refinement.