Read 75 of 2022. The Island by Adrian McKinty

Title: The Island
Author: Adrian McKinty
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0316531283
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 384
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

It had been a while since I read a good thriller, and I am so glad I decided to read this one. Also, do not go on a vacation to an island. After reading this book, I sure wont. The Island is well about an island called Dutch Island that is menacing. The people there have their own rules, it is surrounded by shark-infested waters, it is a dry place, and of course a family is at major risk, due to a certain chain of events.

Tom Baxter and his new wife Heather and his children Olivia and Owen thought this would be a regular vacation. Heather wanted to bond with the children and well, the others just wanted to see Australia, till they veer off the beaten track and enter the Island, where they have to be on their feet, if they want to live.

The Island brings to fore so many characters and situations, just like a good pot-boiler should. The twists in the tale are plenty, and not for once does the book bore or disappoint you. The writing is obviously fast paced as McKinty keeps us guessing what will happen next. You cannot put this down once started and I absolutely enjoyed this one.

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.

This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace

Title: This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
Author: David Foster Wallace
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 978-0316068222
Genre: Non-Fiction, Speech
Pages: 144
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

I have read quite a few commencement speeches by authors. Authors who celebrate creativity (Rowling), some who talk about making art great again or creating good art (Gaiman) and some others who speak of the future and what it has in store (Saunders). And then there is someone like Foster Wallace who gives it to you the way it is – the real world, with no sugar-coating whatsoever.

I knew that would be the case once I received this backlist title from the good folks at Hachette India. David Foster Wallace has left behind a legacy. A cannon of work that I at least read in bits and pieces because sometimes what he says is too much to bear.

This is Water is a speech given by Foster Wallace to the graduating class at Kenyon College in 2005. He starts with a little parable – the one that seems like one, and quickly goes on to break that mode of starting a commencement speech. David’s speech is a trove of wisdom and compassion, thought provoking, and what it means to live in the 21^st century.

I think the thing about such books that there is no single universal message. There is something that relates with everyone. The message of giving up on the rat-race (is that even possible?), the one that speaks about awareness, self-consciousness before saying or doing what we say or do (this one hit home real hard), or just the one to understand what it means to give and sometimes sacrifice a little bit, if you have to.

David Foster Wallace doesn’t speak of glory in the most basic terms. There is glory in empathy. There is glory in understanding. There is glory in small efforts as he rightly puts it. This is Water is the kind of book that is needed at every stage of life. The speech will resonate throughout.

I will leave you with this thought that is my favourite from this read:

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”

 

 

The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

Title: The House of Broken Angels
Author: Luis Alberto Urrea
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0316154888
Genre: Family, Literary Fiction
Pages: 336
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

Some books are a treat and such a joy to read. The House of Broken Angels is just that. Essentially about family and what you carry to other generations, this book is also about being human and relationships. For most part, I thought nothing is going on in the book and yet when you take a step back and see the book from an overall perspective, there is needed a lot going on – making the reader feel like a stranger to begin with and before you know it you are a part of the De La Cruz clan.

The House of Broken Angels is about family and the ties that bind us, over and over again, no matter the mistakes or the trials that family go through. At the end of the family is indeed family and one can’t deny that at all. The beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz has summoned the entire family for one last legendary party, in his final days. And in this time, his mother, nearly a hundred years old dies. In all of this there is Big Angel’s (as Miguel is fondly known) half-brother, Little Angel – almost an outsider’s perspective.

The book is really about Big Angel and his mother. The others are merely secondary characters but written brilliantly by Luis Alberto Urrea. The lore, the fantastical tales, the myths are weaved into the narrative so effectively that they become the story, without ever losing track of the bigger plot. The book has all of it – kindness, rage at being discriminated against, hope, zest and the spirit of togetherness which when you think about can only after all come from family.

At times, it may be overwhelming to keep track of so many characters and sub-plots, but you should allow the stories to take over and engulf you. There is chaos, confusion and people walking in and out of the narrative, but it is worth it as it all adds up wonderfully, lending itself to the primary focus. “The House of Broken Angels” is a highly gratifying and charged read – everything happens in a rush, at a break-neck speed and sometimes everything slows down, compelling you to look around.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Title: Little Fires Everywhere
Author: Celeste Ng
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 978-1408709726
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 352
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 Stars

I knew exactly what I was getting into as I started reading “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng. I had read her first book two years ago called “Everything I Never Told You” and couldn’t wait to start her new one. I can for sure say that I enjoyed “Little Fires Everywhere” a lot more (sorry for that Celeste, though I also enjoyed your debut novel a lot as well). The prose, the description and more than that how life in America is when it comes to consumerism and parenthood at some point mingling together is brilliantly depicted in this novel of dysfunctional families, twisted minds and family ties.

“Little Fires Everywhere” begins with a house burnt down in a closely tight-knit planned community where nothing of this sort would be dreamed of happening by its residents. The idea of well-gated community called Shaker Heights, Ohio, circa 1997 says a lot about the Utopia and unwelcome change and how all if it disrupts the Richardson family’s seemingly happy life, when Mia (a charismatic artist) and her shy fifteen-year old daughter Pearl, move to the town as tenants in the house Mrs. Richardson inherited from her parents.

This triggers events – mainly the differences in their lifestyles and also what is the attitude of the Richardsons when old family friends on theirs decide to adopt a Chinese-American baby – that would one day lead to the Richardson’s own house burning. I am not giving away anything, don’t worry, but all I can say is that this book kept me up longer than I intended those two nights it took me to finish it.

Celeste Ng has this amazing quality of going easy on the reader mostly and then out of nowhere, she shows you the cracks in relationships, the changes as people interact with each other and how explosive it all is under a calm surface. I loved the writing. It is fast and yet bringing out the details of every character – the Richardson family (mother, father and four teenage children), Mia and Pearl (who I loved as the book moved along) and also the other couple – every detail, every sentence is in place when it comes to “Little Fires Everywhere”. The title is so layered – depicting the fires within and the ones that we see. The ones we also feel but deny and move along in life. If you have to read one book this October (while there is still time), make it this one.