 Alvar offers "deft portraits of transnational wanderers" who are "blessed and cursed with mobility," according to "New York Times" critic J. K. Ramakrishnan, with a major theme in her work being the cultural conflicts of immigrants.Critic Maureen Corrigan on "NPR" described Alvar's writing style as gorgeous.Ramakrishnan compared her characters to ones written by Nadine Gordimer.