The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Patel, Reema. Such Big Dreams. Penguin Random House LLC, 2022.

Reema Patel's novel Such Big Dreams is written from the first person point of view of the main character Rakhi. The novel's numerical chapters are all written in the present tense, and depict scenes from Rakhi's life in the narrative present. Those sections marked with a flame symbol and written in the past tense, appear interspersed with the numerical chapters. These portions of the narrative depict recollected scenes from Rakhi's past life. The author uses these formal patterns in order to enact Rakhi's fraught relationship with her past and her ongoing thematic explorations. The following summary, however, relies on the present tense and abides by a linear mode of explanation.

When Rakhi is just seven years old, her mother and father are killed in a bus accident. In the wake of their deaths, Rakhi's aunt and uncle assume her care. When her uncle proves abusive, however, Rakhi runs away. She rides the train all the way to Bombay. Almost immediately upon her arrival, she encounters a boy who introduces himself at Babloo. Because she is alone and has nowhere to go, she accepts Babloo's invitation to join him and a group of other children living on the streets. Over the course of the following years, Rakhi becomes increasingly reliant upon Babloo's care, guidance, and protection. She is therefore devastated when Babloo is interned at a juvenile detention center after the friends burn down a vendor's hut together. In the wake of their crime, Rakhi is admitted to the Astra Home, an institution for orphaned or destitute girls.

While she is living at the Astra Home, one of the institution's trustees, Guari Ma'am, takes an interest in Rakhi. She sees Rakhi as spirited and determined. She promises to help Rakhi secure a better future if she focuses on studying and reforming her behavior. Rakhi agrees.

When Rakhi is in her teens, Guari Ma'am helps her to leave the Astra House. She finds her a one-room hut to live in at the Behrampada slum in Bombay. She also hires Rakhi as her office assistant at Justice For All, the human rights organization Ma'am runs.

Over the course of the years that follow, Rakhi becomes increasingly frustrated with her life and circumstances. She is particularly bitter that Ma'am has enrolled her in therapy after she stole a crystal elephant from her neighbor Tazim's boss's house. However, when a new Canadian intern named Alex starts working at Justice For All, Rakhi's hope is reignited.

Although she knows she should not be associating with Alex, who is related to Tazim's boss, Rakhi starts spending more and more time with him. He not only engages Rakhi on work-related issues, but takes an interest in her past and her future. Rakhi starts to believe what he says about applying to college and pursuing a career beyond Justice For All.

Some time later, Rakhi reunites with Babloo by chance at a local celebration. Although glad to see him again, Rakhi worries that Babloo is hiding something from her. Indeed, not long later, she learns that Babloo works for a terrorist organization. By the end of the novel, she is horrified to discover that Babloo's organization accepted a job to burn down her slum. The party responsible for the job is the Arora Group, an organization that recently promised to financially back Justice For All.

After severing her ties with Babloo, Alex, and Guari Ma'am, Rakhi flees to Chowpatty Beach. When she was only nine, she met the celebrity Rakhi Tilak in this same location. Recalling this experience and finding a Ganesh murti figurine on shore restores Rakhi's hope.

Some years later, Rakhi has created a new life for herself. Instead of going to college, she has begun giving tours of Bombay inspired by her life on the streets. After years of struggle, Rakhi finally feels she has discovered her true self.