This is a classic that didn't completely move and enthrall me. It was interesting but a bit of a slog to get through. Kim is a half-Irish, half-Indian street urchin that is precocious, enthusiastic and conniving. Desperate to experience everything around him, he gloms onto a lama who is on a spiritual journey. On his way he gets into a bit of espionage due to his friendship with a famous Indian horse trader, ends up in a British boarding school to continue his education and finally in the mountains of the Himalayas as a spy. It's a bit of a boy's adventure book but it is also a meditation on identity as Kim tries to figure out if he is Indian or Irish, brown or white, a spy or a chala (assistant to priest).

The writing style is deliberately choppy and episodic and it was sometimes hard for me to read and completely understand. And there are moments when the novel really slows down.

Not terrible, for sure, but not a book I would read again.