The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Sathian, Sanjena. Gold Diggers. Penguin Random House LLC, 2021.

Sanjena Sathian's novel Gold Diggers is written from main character Neil's first person point of view, and in the past tense. The novel is divided into two parts, 12 chapters, and follows a linear plot trajectory. This structure is complicated by frequent shifts into the past. The following summary adheres to a primarily linear form.

In Part One, when Neil was a boy, he grew up with his immigrant parents and older sister, Prachi, in Hammond Creek, Georgia. Throughout his childhood, Neil felt weighed by his parents' pressure to succeed academically. However, the thing Neil most wanted was to be close with his best friend and neighbor, Anita.

Towards the end of their freshman year in high school, Anita began excelling in school, and pursuing friendships with the popular crowd. Neil felt excluded and alone. Then one day, he snuck into Anita's basement, and discovered her mother Anjali's makeshift alchemy lab. He consumed an entire vial full of a mysterious substance smelling of lemonade. Anita and her mother, Anjali, found him shortly thereafter. They explained that the lemonade was made from the stolen gold of ambitious people in their community. Consuming the lemonade infused the drinker with power, focus, and ambition. When Neil begged to take part in the lemonade regime, the women agreed.

Over the next few months and years, Neil and Anita took regular doses of the lemonade together. The shared secret rekindled their closeness. The lemonade also made Neil feel capable and accomplished. However, Neil remained frustrated because no matter how much lemonade he drank, he still could not surpass his classmate Shruti. One weekend while Anita and Anjali were out of town, Neil tricked Shruti into an intimate encounter in her bedroom. He used their closeness to convince Shruti to give him her gold necklace. Afterwards, he used the necklace to make a new batch of lemonade, all of which he drank. Shortly thereafter, word of Shruti’s suicide spread throughout the community. Neil blamed himself. When Anita heard about Shruti’s death, and what Neil had done, she refused to speak to him.

The next time Neil saw Anita was the night before she and her mother moved to California. In Anita’s room, the friends talked and said goodbye. Then they began kissing and touching each other. While talking about the people they had kissed before, Anita realized the truth of how Neil had used Shruti.

In Part Two, nine years later, Neil was living in California and pursuing his graduate degree. Though he liked studying history he felt distracted and unmotivated. He began using cocaine and Adderall to motivate his efforts. Then one day, Prachi, who also lived in California and who was now engaged, told Neil she had run into Anita at a bridal shop.

Over the course of the following weeks, Neil felt haunted by the past. He could not stop thinking about Anita, and tried using his dissertation as a distraction. Then Anita called him, and they made plans to meet up for drinks.

At the bar, the friends talked about what happened with Shruti and the lemonade for the first time. Then Anita told Neil she needed his help with her mother. Anjali had fallen into a depression after her close friend died, and Anita wanted to make a batch of lemonade to fix her spirits. Believing he might be able to get some lemonade for himself, and desperate to be close to Anita again, Neil agreed.

Over the next few weeks, Anita and Neil became intimate. Neil began spending all of his time at Anita's apartment. Meanwhile, the two planned their upcoming jewelry heist. Anita would be working an upcoming wedding expo, through which they planned to steal a large amount of wedding gold for their lemonade. They convinced Prachi to come, using her wedding to gain access to the gold.

On the day of the expo, Neil was nervous. Though he had promised Anita not to get high and botch their plan, he snuck into the bathroom for a bump of cocaine. He, Prachi, and Anita navigated the expo as planned, stealing as much jewelry as possible. Because Neil was edgy and high, he did not secure as much loot as Anita wanted. He then announced his need to leave early, and dashed out of the convention center with the concealed jewelry. In the lot, a suspicious jeweler almost shot him.

Neil hid in a motel room alone, desperate to make the lemonade by and for himself. Realizing he could do nothing without Anita and Anjali, he was forced to wait for them. When Anita, Anjali, and Anjali's mother, Lakshmi, arrived, they melted down the gold. Anjali said before they made the lemonade, she had to tell them something. She then explained the dangerous effects of consuming heavy metals, and insisted that she could no longer partake. The group decided to dump the gold into the river. Depositing the gold ultimately ushered the group towards healing and reconciliation.