What readers think of Behold the Dreamers, plus links to write your own review.

The time: 2008

The place: New York City. Well, to be exact a corner office on Wall Street with floor to ceiling windows offering a breathtaking view, a posh Upper East Side apartment that is decorated to the nines and a one-bedroom, cockroach-infested fifth-floor walk-up in Harlem.

The main characters: Clark Edwards is a hotshot investment banker at Lehman Brothers, while his beautiful, too-thin wife, Cindy, spends her time shopping, lunching and summering in the Hamptons. Jende Jonga, an illegal immigrant from Cameroon, supports his wife, Neni, and their 6-year-old son, Liomi, doing whatever jobs he can find that do not require proof he is in the United States legally. Neni is in the country on a student visa and attends the local community college with dreams of becoming a pharmacist.

The situation: Clark hires Jende to be his and the family's full-time chauffeur, paying him $36,000 a year for 18-hour days. Jende is beside himself with happiness and hope for the future.

And then…Lehman Brothers collapses.

This magnificently written story by Imbolo Mbue is told entirely from the points of view of Jende and Neni. Clark and Cindy's stories we learn from eavesdropping on their phone conversations while Jende drives them around New York City. Jende and Neni have very little, but they are bursting with dreams and hopes for the future. Meanwhile, Clark and Cindy are impossibly wealthy but have only faded hopes and squashed dreams. It is this contrast, even more than the differences of race, class and wealth, that sets up the story for the main plot when life for both couples irrevocably and tragically changes forever with the failure of Lehman Brothers.

This remarkable story about the American dream—for those who desperately want it and those who indifferently have achieved it—is written with such verve and wisdom that it pierced my heart and soul. I highly recommend this book, which amazingly is Mbue's first novel. I eagerly await her second book.

It is interesting, with all that is happening in America, to read a book that portrays a story of a hardworking immigrant family in comparison to an wealthy American family. Both families face serious problems and how they handle them is telling...but what tells it all is the ending!

Loved the depictions of Cameroon culture, the women, the parties, the clothes and the deep community...on the other hand, as one-half of an executive couple with a child, working and traveling non-stop during the '80s and '90s, the idea that Jende and/or Nendi would not share their immigration dilemma with the Clarks in no way rang true. The co-dependencies of the two families made this part of the story completely unbelievable. When lives become so interwoven, well, you take the risks. Been there, know that.