Book Review: The To-Let House by Daisy Hasan

Title: The To-Let House
Author: Daisy Hasan
Publisher: Tara Books
ISBN: 978-81-906756-5-9
Genre: :Literary Fiction
Pages: 227
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

When you talk about a region that no one speaks about, there is enough excitement held within the pages of the book, to sustain the readers’ interest. That is what happens when you read, “The To-Let House” by Daisy Hasan. Written without any sugar-coating, this book comes from a place that is surreal and at the same time haunting.

The To-Let House is a story of four individuals and their lives. It may seem a mundane, run-of-the-mill plot, however it is not. The story is set in the city of Shillong, in the North-East, an almost forgotten territory for most writers. I have yet to come across more books set in this area and sadly there aren’t many there.

Back to the book, The To-Let House is not an easy read. At least it wasn’t for me. The story kept racing between the past and the present and took some time for me to get hold of it, however once I did, it was a read like no other. One cannot imagine that this is the author’s first book. The book is about childhood memories and how much do we hold close and how much do we let go of. As the children enter adolescence, their friendships and lives are taken to different levels – their reactions, their opinions and also the territory’s violent background, which shapes them as people.

The writing is visibly dark and dense and yet hopeful. It leaves you with a sense of connection with the characters – Di, Clemmie, Kulay and Addy. Their worlds, their stories and their lives are at the core of the book – what they think and how they make sense of where they live and that’s when you realize that it is not the house at the core, but people. The book will lead you in and charm you and make you forget the world as quickly as you can. Read and enjoy it. It is one of the books that will get you thinking and not stop.

Buy it from here: https://www.tarabooks.com/books/?product_search=the+to-let+house

Book Review: Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

Title: Pigeon English
Author: Stephen Kelman
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-1-4088-1063-7
Genre: Literary Fiction
PP: 288 pages
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Pigeon English is narrated by Harrison Opoku, an eleven-year-old who has recently moved from Ghana to a high rise flat in inner city London. When a boy is stabbed near his home Harri teams up with CSI fan and friend Dean to try and solve the murder. He’s also busy trying to fit in and learn the street smarts necessary to survive while showing a more innocent side, caring for a pigeon that appears on his family’s balcony.

Harri is fond of showing that he’s learning the rules, creating lists to demonstrate he knows what’s what, and desperately wants to be part of the in-crowd, turning his cheap trainers into Adidas lookalikes with a marker pen and talking the talk. The vocab he uses is spot on, reading the book was like listening to my teen step-daughter. However while he is fully aware of the gang activity going on around him and the dangers it presents he is still quite naive and too willing to believe everything he is told.

This really is a book of contrasts. While he has is being pulled into a very grown-up world he is still a child. A couple of phrases that appear repeatedly are that something was the funniest thing he ever saw, or that he’d bet a million pounds on x or y. It comes across as typical, childish exaggeration. While he is doing tasks to be accepted into the Dell Farm Crew, the local gang, he is also concerned for the pigeon he adopts and joins in superstitions like avoiding the cracks on the pavement to make sure something good happens.

Harri’s family has been split, with his mother bringing him and his older sister Lydia to the UK, while his father and grandmother remain in Ghana with his baby sister. Harri dotes on his baby sister and is looking forward to them all being reunited. While his mother apparently brought her family over on a legitimate visa Auntie Sonia has less regard for the legalities required. Her boyfriend is a thug, but while Harri seems aware of what use he puts his baseball bat to it doesn’t look to bother him. Unfortunately while Harri has plenty of hope he doesn’t have enough fear and his forays into the bad wide world are threatening the safe home his mother has tried to establish for the family. Hearing some stories about life back in Ghana serves to further highlight the differences in the places and the communities.

I found Harri a very sweet character, a good kid who has been dropped into a threatening environment but still trying (mostly) to do the right thing. I was rooting for him and Lydia, who has found herself a poor example of a best friend, to get a happy ending. The parts narrated by the pigeon made for an interesting diversion, and its pieces were both funny, sweet and thoughtful, although in some places I did have to work to see how it fitted into the plot. It makes for a good picture of how life might be for a recent immigrant in a big and, initially, completely alien city.

Book Review: Glasshopper by Isabel Ashdown

Title: Glasshopper
Author: Isabel Ashdown
Publisher: Myriad Editions
ISBN: 9780954930974
Genre: Literary Fiction
PP: 344 Pages
Price: £7.99
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

This story of family life is told in two threads – both told in the first person. The threads alternate between Jake (the middle son) and Mary, Jake’s mother. Mary’s thread allows us a brief look into her childhood/teens which helps in understanding her descent into alcoholism. We also get to read her perception alongside the similar timeline as Jake’s. This might sound confusing and you may have read other stories that are written this way and not enjoyed them. Don’t let that put you off though as the two running side by side are crafted so skilfully that it makes perfect sense and adds to the magic.

At first I was a bit bewildered by the prologue and had it in the back of mind as the story unfolded. I have to say, the way it is a part of the story is also very skilfully done. It clicked for me straight away and because I couldn’t quite believe it, didn’t want it to be there – I read that part of the story again. A bit like Jake wondering if he had been dreaming! I was hoping for something different of course. The characters became `real’ for me – I only wanted the best for them all.

Jake, especially, is a wonderful character: with his love of Greek mythology; his work at the corner shop and relationship with its owner; how he tries to fill the parental role in the family when his father moves out; and, perhaps most importantly, how he tries to rationalise events in his family’s life. I felt it was good that his story is counter-balanced by letting the reader also hear Mary and her version of events. Otherwise, it could have been all too easy to demonise her. However, as her background and story is revealed, it becomes clearer why she has turned into the woman she has and, while she becomes not necessarily a character we can sympathise with, at least one that we can understand.

The characters were well-defined and this includes those on the periphery. Mr Horrocks who owns the local shop is exactly as you would imagine him to be as are all the other people who make up this brilliant story.

Glasshopper is the kind of novel that stays with you, or rather the characters and their little quirks do. Adolescent Jake is very vivid and seeing the story unfold through his eyes parallel to his mum Mary’s story works very well. The pain of growing up is captured beautifully in both cases.

What I really like is that Isabel Ashdown has managed to keep a lot of family secrets buried under the surface, and yet those secrets are what drives me as a reader forward. Nothing is ever spelt out; events are implied and it’s satisfying to work things out for yourself. The end is totally unexpected and lifts the story.

You can purchase the book here on Flipkart

You can also read more about the book here Myriad Editions

Skunk Girl by Sheba Karim

Bleaching her mustache and missing out on all the best parties are part of what Nina’s come to expect as a Pakistani-American teen with the strictest parents in town. At the start of her junior year in high school, she’s still living in the shadow of her genius older sister and still trying to figure out how to keep up socially in spite of her family’s fear that she’s becoming too “Um-ree-can-ized.”

Then the unexpected happens: Nina meets an attractive Italian exchange student named Asher—and Asher catches a glimpse of the dark line of hair running down the middle of her back. More humiliated than ever, Nina is certain that Asher will prefer button-nosed blond Serena over her scholarly, hirsute self.

I started laughing from page 1 of SG, and not just because of the Jolene and SAT antonyms and the fact that we’re hearing a story about South Asian immigrant lives. Naturally, overbearing traditionalist parents and obsessive academic regimes are resonant themes with me, and it’s great to finally get a window open in that house, but more so, the writing in SG is light and witty and humorous and the teenage protagonist, Nina Khan, is actually loveable, as the book jacket promises (prompts?).

The dialogue and pacing is great, and I found myself wanting to know what Nina was going to do or think next, even if it was just a tiny tumult versus a grand upheaval. Her two best friends are nicely depicted (though it took me some time to separate them in my head). I especially enjoyed her father’s character.

The great thing about skunk girl is how realistic I found it. I laughed at Nina’s woes concerning her South Asian “curse” and sympathized as her parents’ heaped responsibility and tradition upon her, but I hoped that she would eventually appreciate her parents, her family, her culture. Nina chooses to sneak out to a party in hopes to see Asher and do some underage drinking with her friends, but quickly finds out that it may not be for her. It was nice to see Nina make not the greatest decisions and learn from them.

Teens of all backgrounds will be able to relate to Nina’s struggle in reconciling her own identity with her family’s culture. While the girl-crushing-on-boy story may be familiar, the funny and touching Skunk Girl is truly a novel of a different stripe.

Skunk Girl; Karim, Sheba; Penguin India; Rs. 250

Third Best by Arjun Rao

I remember how I used to shudder at the thought of being sent to a “boarding school” when I was young. I would do something bratty and my parents would threaten me with the usual, “We will send you far away from home”. Little did I know at that time, what that would have felt like, had I been sent away. Sadly I was not – there were all false threats anyway which I soon came to realize.

As I grew up and so did my social circle so to say, I envied friends and colleagues alike who had had the boarding school experience. The night escapades and the encounters with teachers at odd-hours or the fear of getting caught and not waking up on time and many such incidents I would sadly only hear of from them, having never experienced them myself.

And then a book arrived on these experiences right in my hand to read and review – Third Best by K.V. Arjun Rao, published by Hachette India. “Third Best” is one of those reads that everyone would connect with – it is but after all about school and of those days gone by. We leave school with a sense of sadness and then remember it with a sense of nostalgia; however school memories are the only ones that are more etched than the others, as we traverse through life and its improbabilities.

Third Best centres around the story of boarders on board – set in the fictional Shore Mount School (based and conceptualized after The Lawrence School where the author studied and The Doon School, where the author now teaches), the small lies sometimes told and the heartaches, the chores and the nicknames and the teachers with their eccentricities and quirks, and not to forget the bullies and the bullying which is a part and parcel of school, I guess.

Though Nirvan is the protagonist of the book, the story revolves around the lives of his friends Faraz, Gautam, Adi and Billy as well. While Gautam is the noisy and obnoxious being, who doesn’t get frazzled by the bullies, Faraz is the most sophisticated of the lot, with his ideals and morals strongly set.

Third Best makes you want to relive the school days. It touches upon the expectations of parents’ vis-à-vis what the children want to do (and no, this is not a run-down theme, no matter how many times repeated). It is about shaping one’s thoughts and mind so to say amidst all the pressure and expectations.

The book is real and it speaks with you at ease. It is like a friend who you can discuss memories with and which will remain for a long time to come. After reading the book, there was this sudden surge of emotions in me that made me want to contact my school friends, no matter where they were and find out more about their lives. Third Best will make you want to go back to school for sure. Read it for its capacity to transport you to another world that you were once a part of.

Third Best; Rao, Arjun; Hachette India; Rs. 295