Read 237 of 2021. The Women I Could Be by Sangita Jogi. English Text by Gita Wolf.

Title: The Women I Could Be
Author: Sangita Jogi
English Text by Gita Wolf
Publisher: Tara Books
ISBN: 9788193448533
Genre: Feminism
Pages: 68
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

This is hands down one of the best books I have read this year. It is intricate, empathetic, gives a world view in its own manner, feisty, feminist, and above all makes you check your privilege, and look at the world differently.

Sangita Jogi’s mother Tejubehan is an artist herself and has been working with Tara books since a while now. Sangita Jogi brings her own style to the fore. “My women are modern” she says, which is seen beautifully in this book.

The book is divided into sections – modern women, women I could be, roaming the world, appearing in public, good times, and the world has progressed.

Through each section, Sangita Jogi most uniquely tells us about her life, her dreams, her aspirations, how she had to get married early – tradition being what it is, and how she manages to still draw and paint and be her own person.

I love the part when she speaks of her daughter and how she will not be who her mother is. She wants better for her daughter, which she intends to give.

“The Women I Could Be” shows you a different India – of women who have the same dreams and ambitions – yet give in to circumstances and even then, dare to be who they want to. Jogi’s art is stunning, liberating, and makes you want to have it all. I was stumped looking at it and kept coming back to it again and again.

The text is sparse, honest, and hard-hitting. She admits to only wanting to draw modern women – they make her dream big and think even bigger. I guess that’s the power of imagination. Jogi’s women are feisty and fantabulous. Through her art we see how they only want to have fun and be themselves. Through her art, we get a glimpse of the person she is and one can do nothing but applaud her talent and what she stands for.

Read 236 of 2021. Five Tuesdays in Winter: Stories by Lily King

Title: Five Tuesdays in Winter: Stories
Author: Lily King
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 978-1529086485
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 240
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 4/5

I love short stories and this collection was no exception. I had read Writers & Lovers sometime last year and remember enjoying it a lot. Lily King’s writing is so precise and sharp, that every page shines with clarity of thought and emotion. Even so some stories are weaker than the others, but you tend to ignore them as a reader because the overall collection works for you.

The writing is tender and beautiful. She writes about big themes and spaces – complicated relationships between parents and children, former colleagues, a coming out story, marriages that do not work, and to most specifically focus on feelings in almost every story makes you marvel at the skill of also not meandering and not being too melodramatic, where it could have gone that way.

There are stories that are also dark, but they are made up for stories that offer moments of sweetness and generosity of emotions. The title story is about a jilted spouse left with an only child. A bookseller whose wife left him years ago and now he doesn’t know what to do with all his emotions and his preteen daughter trying to fill the void in his life.

Lily King’s stories are all about human feeling – they cover the entire range of emotions and do not make you choose any as a reader. For me, each was told with a different tone – though the underlined broad strokes were the same – of hope, failure, success, and a chance at mending the broken.

Read 229 of 2021. To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

Title: To Paradise
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 978-1529077476
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 720
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

To Paradise isn’t A Little Life. It will not break your heart. It will not make you cry. It will not torment you days after you finish it. It will not haunt you or your memories. It is not that kind of a book. But what it is – for its writing, multiple plots, characters that are engaging and well-fleshed out, it is about family and relationships and how we are forever stuck or not with them, it is about inheritance, and passion, love and lack of it, and more so about Hawai’i.

It is not The People in the Trees, yet there is enough science for people who loved that one. It isn’t what you think it is – even though the blurb is given, and you think you know what this book is about, but you do not. To Paradise is nothing like I have read this year, and this is what I expect of Yanagihara.

To Paradise is divided into three parts and each part feels like a different novel. I failed to see the larger connect and that to me is alright, because I will reread it and see where I missed out. The first story is set in an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is a part of the Free States where anyone can do what they please, love and marry whoever they want – it all seems very idyllic. The nubile and young scion of a very distinguished family David is smitten by a music teacher Edward, who has nothing to show for, when he is almost betrothed to a wealthy suitor Charles, way older than him and perhaps incapable of understanding him. Yanagihara’s characters take time to grow and for readers to even get to know them. It is almost a slow-burn of a novel in that sense.

The second part of the novel plays out in 1993 Manhattan with the AIDS epidemic taking more lives by the minute. This part of the novel looks at the relationship of a son and father, both Davids this time. The son, David is living with his older and richer lover Charles and the father is combating a serious illness, contemplating on life – past and present through a series of monologues. This by far was my favourite section of the novel. Yanagihara writes prose like no other. Even though like I said this book isn’t traumatic, it has its moments of melancholy, grief, and loss.

The last part of the novel is set in a not-so-distant future where pandemics are a common thing and charts the relationship between a grandfather, Charles and his granddaughter Charlie. This is the part where science (as it played out beautifully in The People in the Trees) comes to fore along with questions of identity, climate change, and uncertainty.

The themes of the book are so large and interconnected that it makes you want to keep turning the pages. Love, loss, loneliness, the need for someone, shame, death and fear keep getting played out in several ways. The writing is taut and perfect. Not a beat is missed, and nothing is out of place. The book may seem chunky, but it is needed. Yanagihara works on details – this is the only way to get to know her characters and understand the world she creates.

To Paradise left me stumped as well in a lot of places – there are a lot of questions unanswered, too many loose ends that weren’t tied, too much left for assumption, but it is alright. I think some books are meant to be that way. I will most certainly reread it when it is officially out in January.

Read 221 of 2021. The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Title: The Reading List
Author: Sara Nisha Adams
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN: 9780063115040
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 384
Source: Publisher
Rating: 2/5

I like books about books and how reading heals and how it helps cope with life. I was eagerly looking forward to “The Reading List” but it disappointed me quite early on, and yet I went on with it, hoping there will be some redemption. I was wrong.

The characters are predictable and the writing quite uninteresting.   I mean I like the idea and maybe it could’ve gone somewhere, but that wasn’t explored. Both Mukesh and Aleisha are not relatable. Books are the common factor between them and there’s a reading list (but of course) but that’s that. The reading list however is interesting and can be talked about a lot more than the book of which it is a part.

Like I said, the writing doesn’t lead you to imagine, it doesn’t make you empathise with the characters, nor does it excite you. I can see why it might work for other readers, but it just didn’t do anything for me.  

Read 220 of 2021. Assembly by Natasha Brown

Title: Assembly
Author: Natasha Brown
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company ISBN: 978-0316268264
Genre: Novella, Contemporary Fiction Pages: 112
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Assembly is a short book that will leave you gasping for breath.

Assembly is a book that shows you the mirror. It tells you what you think, feel, and where you stand about people who are different than you.

Assembly is candid, it is raw, its prose is direct and scathing. It aims to destroy stereotypes, beliefs, the perceptions we hold, and how we conduct ourselves, sometimes with masks we wear.

Assembly is about a young woman who is struggling and navigating in a world of racism and differentiation. A young black British woman living day to day surrounded by privileged people – at work and further into her boyfriend’s world of white.

Assembly is about disease and how choosing not to do anything about it is also a sign of protest, given the times we live in.

Assembly is about the number of ways in which racism cripples a person – takes the very soul out of the body, and all you have is second-guessing, withered memories, and exhaustion.

Assembly is potent. It says what it has to say in less than 100 pages and does a damn good job of it.

Assembly is about inequalities and about how one is told to live throughout their life – by climbing the social ladder. Put your head down and work hard, till you don’t want to do that anymore.

Assembly is about the choices we make, the situations we are bound by, the decisions made for us basis the colour of the skin, and how sometimes it is all about regaining your agency.

Assembly is all of this and so much more. It is a book that makes you question, rethink, unlearn, learn, and figure what is going on in your sheltered, bubble of a world. It makes you notice.