#BookReview: Against the Loveless World - Susan Abulhawa

Rating:

3.5/5 Book Emojis!

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Format Used: 

Paperback

Pages - 366

Available at your nearest independent bookstore!

*Note: The views below are unbiased and solely my own. A copy of the book was provided by the publisher Bloomsbury India for an honest review.

Review:

"The Cube is thus devoid of time. It contains, instead, a yawning stretch of something unnamed, without present, future, or past, which I fill with imagined or remembered life.”

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa is a literary fiction novel about a girl named Nahr who tells her story of a search for love, family, justice and freedom, from inside a prison cell called- The Cube. Written in 7 parts, most of which are encompassed literally toward the directions in the cube, she paints an extremely vivid picture of her life before, during and after the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Susan gives one of the rawest and the most powerful voices I've seen in a first-person narrative fiction, to the protagonist. The unfiltered diction and strength in Nahr's story speaks volumes that echo within the dooming walls of the cube, as well as the reader's mind. 

While I read the book, I got in touch with my friends who understood the cultural references in the book well. Not only did the author stick politically uncensored, but was culturally authentic to every detail surrounding the lead's life. Every single character and every little side-story had a soul of its own, making this book full of life and yet gripping with sharp edges. It had humour, pain, reality and most importantly, strength. Set in decades from the 70s till the early 00's, the writing is timeless and forever relevant. Anyone who reads it will know the reality and horrors reeking from every word of this story- of what it means to be a refugee, to have your life tossed around in the hands of war-thirsty militants and to find your voice among the deafening bombings by western capitalists. What the essence of the book stood out to be for me, was how fearlessness is a privilege that costs a lot more than what women in the Middle East are given credit for. For the West to cause so much destruction, spanning generations of these innocent lives, and for them to try to fight back, only to be labelled with Islamophobia as terrorists, is something that I feel the world should be educated about, with this book. 

My less-than-perfect rating for this brilliant story is for a conflict between a story of this magnitude and strength, to writing that evokes impermanent thought and inconsistent vigour. The first dozen of pages are gripping but lose their magnetic flow with the reader for the next hundred pages. The ending of the book is interesting, though not immaculate as it could've been, with some direction and structure. The protagonist ages, but her voice fails to evolve- to the point that the narration get monotonous. The other characters of the book, on the other hand, not only evolve as people, but their stories unfold with brilliant plot devices. 

Conclusion: I really enjoyed this read and definitely not as a piece of entertainment. This was power summing up three hundred sixty six pages with raw edge and sheer truth. I recommend it to everyone who doesn't bother with trigger warnings of rape, sexual assault, graphic imagery and violence, and wishes to take a story of a lifetime away with themself. 

#BookReview: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

Rating:

4.5/5 Book Emojis!

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Format Used: 

Kindle Edition

Pages - 389

*Note: The views below are unbiased and solely my own. The copy of the book was personal and self-owned. 

Review:

"I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a retelling of the Greek myth of Achilles and Patroclus (from the Iliad) where Patroclus, a young boy is banished from his father's kingdom on accidentally killing another boy, and sent as as an exile to Phthia where he meets Achilles- Aristos Achaion and the son of the king. The book spans across their boyhood and coming of age, growing up only to realise that their time together has come down to be placed in the Trojan War where their prophecies and fates will play out for the legends to speak of. 

Madeline Miller has done a great job in adding a life to the legendary myth of the two people whose relationship was speculated as a controversial topic for centuries, by historians. The writing of this book was extremely personal and the reason why it is so successful, what I believe, is how she has a deep spiritual connection with every person in this myth. She knows the characters well, which is why she's able to give them the voices they need to be so deeply resonating with the readers. She has empathised and in a way, almost transformed herself in writing as half-god Achilles or the exiled underdog Patroclus or the stone-cold sea nymph Thetis or the senile but wise Peleus or the obnoxious and selfish Agamemnon and every single person whom we come across. 

I, a person who passionately studies Greek and Roman Mythology, took about a month to finish this book since I had to fact-check and read beyond the pages of every single incident. And lo and behold, I was absolutely mesmerised by how perfectly this book was able to depict the immensely intimate, warm-blooded and pure relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. The way Madeline weaves her sentences into personalised emotions for the two as well as everyone/everything around them, I was swooning with each paragraph. It's powerful and yet adequately soft for a legendary myth. 

I wasn't able to give a 5-star rating for small discomforts I felt in reading two particular scenes that childish and written in a rush (respectively): Achilles in the palace of Lycomedes and the very last scene of the book. Despite that and the fact that I knew how the myth ends, the author was successful in leaving me devastated with her writing and character-building skills. The way she moulds her writing to accommodate romance, war, coming-of-age, parenting, sex and travel: all wrapped up inside the golden veil of Homeric Greek is magnificent.

Conclusion: This is one cultured gay story based on a Greek myth. What else do I have to say for someone to pick it up and read it and wail with me? Nothing. 

#BookReview: Less - Andrew Sean Greer

Rating:

4/5 Book Emojis!

 

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Format Used: 

Paperback

Publisher - Hachette India 

Pages - 264

*Note: The views below are unbiased and solely my own. Thanks to the publisher (Hachette India) for providing me a copy for an honest review. Part of #HachettePride campaign.

Review:

“Where was he? Somewhere in there he lost the first phase of youth, like the first phase of a rocket; it had fallen, depleted, behind him. And here was the second. And last. He swore he would not give it to anyone; he would enjoy it. He would enjoy it alone. But: how to live alone and yet not be alone?” 

Less by Andrew Sean Greer is a book about a 49-year-old American writer who goes on a journey across the world in order to avoid his ex-boyfriend's wedding, while making the most of his life before stepping into his 50s. Written in third person, this book is narrated by an observer of the protagonist Arthur Less, in a wonderfully hilarious tone that subtly jolts your heart with poignant undertones.

I started this book on a light-hearted note, based on reviews from others, and laughed with every page until I reached half-way. This was when the book started gaining content mass and intensity: with vigor and passionate writing facaded as humor. As a queer man who reads between the lines and [unfortunately] is known to feel too deeply, I found the character of Arthur very endearing and most definitely resonating with his unspoken existential crisis that lurks unconsciously inside the psyche of a middle-aged gay man and my personal quarter-life crisis.

The story will make a casual reader enjoy the book thoroughly while making the sensitive absorb the deep emotions that lay within the writer's mind. As from what I've learnt from his interviews, the author wrote the main character based off of his personal traits, but ended up quite independent. However, the writing never fails to reveal the deepest anxieties and the low-lying fear of dying alone that Arthur thinks about but never mentions in the book. All the events, the places, the countries and characters in the book feel extremely real which is why they strike so strongly throughout the book, making it an empathetic journey that we take in each airport and hotel room with the clueless but innocently pure Less. After every few pages, I couldn't help but associate each new character with a person, a feeling and a moment from personal experience I've had in life, so it took me more than a couple of days to fully immerse myself in this otherwise "easy-read," while looking at my old photos and sobbing over them (!).

With a stone to my heart, I'll take off one star from a perfect rating for the minor inconsistency of narration in a few dozen pages that even though is the narrator's personal character development, feels like a very slight prick for this innocent genius of a novel. The ending of the book is so perfect and magnificent that I think no one could've ever imagined being deceived by an innocent and cute cover, that bad.

Conclusion: This book should be a movie. It's for all ages and it will be a contemporary classic must-watch tear-jerker rom-com for the pure soul's sombre pleasure. Definitely recommend to everyone.

#BookReview: Sing Unburied Sing - Jesmyn Ward

Rating:

2.75/5 Book Emojis!

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Format Used: 

Paperback

Publisher - Bloomsbury India 

Pages - 292

*Note: The views below are unbiased and solely my own.

Review:

“Sorrow is food swallowed too quickly, caught in the throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe.” 

Sing, Unburied, Sing is the story of a young black boy named Jojo, in rural Mississippi with his meth addict mother Leonie, his Mam and Pop, and his younger sister Michaela whose lives get further complicated after they set on a ride to receive their father Michael from the Parchman prison. As we go through the book, we come across every character's story associated to the place.

Honestly, I don't understand how this book won the National Book Award for fiction as it was such a waste of idea. The concept was so magnificent but to see the author drag it through the sewers was painful through the course of these 292 pages. The first two chapters struck such a wonderful note that I hoped would resonate throughout, which ended up being my own wailing for it to be over. Jojo and Pop's story was the only one worth my attention but the author decided to run us over with the bumpy car ride and about a 100 pages of a little girl puking.

Ward fails to deliver a power tale with her inconsistent writing and overcompensating for the low points in the story with poor poetic prose (can't believe I'm wording it like that). The moment the reader thinks this story can be saved, the author decides to introduce paranormal content by the final few chapters, baffling my last ounce of sanity I had gathered to finish the book. The third last chapter brings hyperboles and dramatic exploration of death with paranormal devices, written fairly well. However, it was so inconsistently given way in the story that I wondered if she commissioned someone else to finish the book for her, as it was highly misrepresentative of the overall tone of the book.

By the end of the story, I was amused, yet disappointed at Jesmyn for playing so loosely with important characters and stories like these with inconsistent highs and lows.

Conclusion: This book is written as if Tayari Jones had Bipolar Disorder. If you're into that, I wouldn't stop you without saying that you can rather read the stable and real Tayari Jones instead of putting yourself through this (unless your standards are circling the drain and you liked this book already).

#BookReview: Adults - Emma Jane Unsworth

Rating:

5/5 Book Emojis!

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Format Used: 

Paperback

Publisher - HarperCollins India 

Pages - 345

*Note: I received an Advance Review Copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher HarperCollins India, for an honest review. The views below are unbiased and solely my own.

Review:

"“Oh, my darling," she says, into my hair. "At least I only had to try to look like Twiggy. You've got to sing and dance and fuck and work and mother and sparkle and equalize and not complain and be beautiful and love your imperfections and stay strong and show your vulnerability and bake and box and pull fucking port. It's much too much.” ”

Adults is simply a story about just a dirty, pervy, neurotic woman named Jenny McLaine in her 30s who is so oblivious to stick to the expected "lady-like" version of herself. What makes this book a true ingenious work of hilarious contemporary fiction, is the the clever wit, snarky observations and the relatable uncertainty that adulthood brings about.

Jenny has no clue about life and that's what draws the reader to her. How a woman navigates through the time of her life when she's expected to be married with a bunch of kids running about, as a free-willed and unfiltered trainwreck. Jenny is neurotically attached to an Instagram influencer because, according to my perspective as a psychologist, she thinks being followed by someone as known as her, adds a little more meaning and flavour to her life. It's actually something a lot of us [unhealthily] dealing with the struggles in our lives can relate to: putting out an inflated and exaggerated version of our lives on social media just to seem likeable and desired. To look like our lives are just as fun and interesting as anyone with a wider following.

But, that's not the only reason why I think this book is a genius work of a (and I say this in the most admiring way possible) mad mad woman is how this book is steered wherever life takes Jenny and we are just as clueless as she is, making this book highly entertaining and an excellent journey of interesting humour. All of this is to the point where I honestly want to sit down with Jenny, pounding red wine, and laugh my worries away. Not only does she seek validation through physical comfort and sex (well, mood) she doesn't understand how her life can slowly implode as a result of her reckless impulsivity. And that, is a journey Emma takes us through, for which I'm so grateful.


Conclusion: If you like the show Fleabag and movies like Frances Ha(2012), Amélie(2001), Trainwreck(2015) you will absolutely adore this book just as much as me. This book is hilarious and witty enough that I read it all in Phoebe Waller Bridge's accent in my head and laughed hysterically in the metro with no fucks to give. This is also a must read for every true feminist who empathises with the madness of adulthood, and simply for everyone who has at least once in their lives said "you know what? fuck it."

PS, I really think the negative reviews are from people who're conservatively stepped over by the mindset that a woman should be lady-like and well mannered. Trust me, if Jenny were a man, this book would be a movie by now.

#BookReview: Swimming in the Dark - Tomasz Jedrowski

Rating:

4/5 Book Emojis

Format Used: 

ARC - Paperback

Publisher - Bloomsbury India 

Pages - 232

*Note: I received an Advance Review Copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher Bloomsbury India, for an honest review. The views below are unbiased and solely my own.

Review:

"...I slept deeply, dreamlessly, as if floating under water, I was unmoored, a ship that had finally left its harbour, only to be pushed by the wind without any control of its own. When I awoke I hardly knew who and where I was.”

 Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski is the story of a young man named Ludwig who is coming-of-age in the light of the violent political decline in Poland around the '80s. At an agricultural camp, he locks eyes with a university student named Janusz and he finds himself falling. But, the eyes of the government are wherever they expect the least. Bonding over the copy of James Baldwin's queer love story, Giovanni's Room, their romance gains passion and strength. 

This was a book that satiated my thirst for Andre Aciman and relit the warm fire for my love of European history, this time with Poland. Tomasz never fails to give a well detailed and beautifully incorporated backdrop for each political and historical event that obstruct the romance of our characters. The writing was brilliant and the characters possessed depth and developed with the story. However, the only thing I felt missing was more of homoeroticism and more pages about the chemistry between Ludwig and Janusz. But that doesn't stop me from congratulating the author from writing this important story. 

Very often, among the cacophony of bestsellers, we miss out on voices of authors like these who have stories such as this one, that evidently comes from a place like home where things aren't so utopian. I took up this book expecting a whole lot, since Poland is now very close to my heart and don't fall behind in picking up every queer release, and fortunately, I wasn't disappointed. There's so much to take away from this book, especially the fact that no matter how things change for the better of the marginalised, we don't always have the perfect happy endings. Also, that we should never fail to acknowledge those before us who would've killed to have the freedom we do right now, and that not letting us stop in our way to fight for more. 

Conclusion: This is simply one really really story that I think everyone should read. A classic. A deserved best-seller. 

#BookReview: Infinity Son - Adam Silvera

Rating:

2.5/5 Book Emojis

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Format Used: 

ARC: Paperback

Publisher - Simon & Schuster India 

Pages - 350

*Note: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher Simon & Schuster India, for an honest review. The views below are unbiased and solely my own.

Review:

"War makes us do things we didn’t know we were capable of. We’ve shown compassion, but we’ve also had to become violent to stay alive. To try and win.”

Infinity Son by Adam Silvera is a coming-of-age fantasy novel about a boy named Emil and his brother named Brighton in the city of New York who have spent most of their lives obsessing over Spell Walkers- the vigilantes who protect the world from specters- creatures who steal powers from magical beings known as Celestials. 

In the middle of chaos surrounding these creatures who selfishly crave for power, even if it means shedding of precious and magical blood, Emil discovers there is more to his life than he was told since he was a childhood. Brighton gets pulled in as well, from a wannabe social media celebrity to an overnight sensation's brother. 

I really expected a lot out of this book, being an Adam Silvera superfan since his first book came out years ago, and lo and behold, I was disappointed. The plot was very loose and improperly thought out. At some points it felt like I was reading a gay X-Men fan fiction on WattPad with the character names changed. The book started off on an average depth but gained a little bit of my interest when I hit the 30% mark. But, by the time I was halfway done, I absolutely couldn't find the energy to read it any more. Owing to my undying love for Silvera and the publisher, I finished the book. 

There wasn't good imagery or vivid descriptions used for any of the scenes in the book. For the character development, it didn't exist. The lines seemed quick and missed buildup. However, I liked the concept of the book if you ignore some of the several ridiculous incidents in the story. 


Conclusion: This is definitely not a fantasy book I would recommend to anyone. If you're looking to read gay fantasy, Adam Silvera hasn't done justice to your need. For a quick and light experience, you can definitely give it a try. 

#BookReview: Find Me - Andre Aciman

Rating:

3.75/5 Book Emojis

Format Used: 

Paperback

Publisher - Penguin India 

Pages - 260

*Note: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher Penguin India, for an honest review. The views below are unbiased and solely my own.

>>>Review for 'Call Me By Your Name'- HERE<<<

Review:

"It's those we lost or who never knew we existed who leave their mark. The others barely echo”

Find Me, my highly anticipated sequel release to Call Me By Your Name, is a novel set the years post young Elio's departure for university to be a pianist. It is written in four parts that span over the lives of Elio's father and his relationships, Elio and his life after Oliver and Oliver's life after he leaves Italy. 

The book is culturally rich and satiates the reader's thirst for the warmth of the Italian summer that left us swooning in Call Me By Your Name. The references in each part of the story are highly reflective of how magnificent Andre Aciman's grit is. His heart is open and so are the characters in this story, unafraid to be vulnerable and seen. Greek mythology, music, architecture, folk tales, Italian and sensuality: Find Me serves it all in these 260 pages.

To see the three of our favourite men from Call Me By Your Name but with different characters could've gone horribly wrong but Aciman never disappoints. However, the reason why I think this book doesn't reach the 5 star rating despite being like a great read is that it adds more closure to a healed wound. The stories in this book were loose and off-ended but were executed brilliantly. By the third part, it seemed like our characters were getting shallower in their depth rather than building up efficiently for a sequel. 


Conclusion: I really enjoyed the stunning monologues and descriptions of this magical story come back in a sequel and I actually think that people who miss the characters as profoundly as I found myself doing, please pick up a copy and enjoy the journey through Italy.