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The story chronicles the maturation of Arjie, a boy growing up in Sri Lanka, and explores his experiences with ethnic tension, political violence, gender roles, sexuality and familial politics. The five themes traverse six chapters, each with a unique plot connected to the book's broader storyline of Arjie's maturation in war-torn Sri Lanka.

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Throughout the book, Arjie becomes more aware of his homosexuality and its pariah status in society, the growing ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka that inhibit personal relationships and the interaction of these two concepts in both his life and the lives of his family and friends. 

As an American reader, I found the literature to be an excellent mechanism for exploring South Asian culture, especially given that I previously had no knowledge of it. Furthermore, I appreciated hearing about Sri Lankan society from the unique perspective of a gay adolescent. Arjie's narrative provided a first-person context for the challenges of sexual and ethnic diversity that exist in South Asian culture. 

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Ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka between the minority Tamils and, majority Sinhalese creatively interweave with sexuality, politics and family dynamics to form many of the conflicts present in Funny Boy. The way that ethnicity affects almost every aspect of the characters' lives demonstrates the surprising imposition of Sri Lankan affairs on its citizens. For readers generally unfamiliar with South Asian culture, the narrative provides a personal vehicle to understanding more nuanced components of Sri Lankan society. 

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The most unique characteristic of the book is its approach to time. The six chapters are highly individual in their content and timing, yet the book does not explicitly identify the passing of time in each section. Instead, the implication to the reader is that the story is presented in a chronological order, but the exact amount of time that passes with each chapter is left ambiguous. After reading the different sections of the book, I had to struggle to remember what happened at the beginning, similar to the effort of remembering what you did at the beginning of a very busy day.  It is through this style of bringing together stories that Selvadurai conveys to us Arjie's maturation; we are so focused on the present moment in the story and Arjie's current state of mind that we do not consider the past despite its clear effect on the present. The overarching chronology of the book of moving forward through time made me feel that I was growing up with Arjie.  At the end of story, I marveled at how I could think back to the beginning of the story and see the change over time in Arjie's understanding of his family, ethnicity and sexuality. 

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The book's singular drawback is the characters' lack of depth, particularly Arjie's immediate family members. Although each character clearly has his or her own social and political attitudes, their individual natures are not thoroughly articulated. Consequently, it is difficult to relate to characters through their personalities; their social attitudes and experiences are the primary method of appreciating them. Although many readers are able to relate to characters in literature through common experiences or beliefs, I found that the two-dimensional dispositions of the characters in Funny Boy made this a challenge. Readers looking for a book in which they can develop vivid relations with the characters may, as a result, find themselves disappointed. 

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Nonetheless, the book's careful weaving together of several different themes through a unique chronology makes it an excellent read. There aren't many stories that can take the reader on carefully individualized but intricately related journeys. Funny Boy's ability to do that makes it worth a reader's while.