Teething: The Story of a Dysfunctional Family

Told through verse, Teething explores the story of a family: three siblings and their parents, and the experiences and trauma that have shaped them and made them who they are. It explores all this through the eyes of Achu, the narrator and eldest sibling of the bunch. She explores her brother's struggles with sexuality and …

Poetic Liberty Vol. 1: Turbulent Emotions, a Collection About Life, and Much More

Poetic Liberty Vol. 1: Turbulent Emotions is a collection of poems that encompass a variety of topics, from regrets to hurt to war. Soumil Sadhya explores many of life's emotions through the poetry in this anthology. I will start off by saying this: I'm not a big poetry reader, and I wouldn't have picked up …

At The Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being & Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell

Existentialism, as Sarah Bakewell says, "is more of a mood than a philosophy" and describes anyone "who has ever felt disgruntled, rebellious, or alienated about anything." And by that parameter, literature and philosophy is full of existential writing throughout history. However, for obvious reasons, Sarah Bakewell follows the more concrete history of modern existentialism to …

The Dictionary of Lost Words: An Ode to Lost Voices

While I am more emotional than most, it is not often that a book makes me cry after I finish reading it, and not at particularly sad instances (I cry at plenty of those). The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams is a beautiful journey that left me somewhat a mess by the end …

Wacky workplace satire: Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt

This book is a satire on corporate culture, gender and sexual politics, the objectification of women, and the legal system, among other things.

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Avery Grambs doesn't want much in life: she just wants to work hard and get through school, so that she can travel the world like she once dreamt of doing with her mother. However, her life is thrown off-balance when Tobias Hawthorne, one of the richest men in the country, dies and leaves her almost …

Sands of Arawiya Duology

People lived because she killed. People died because he lived.Every day, Zafira bint Iskandar disguises herself as a man: the Hunter. The renowned hunter who braves the dark Arz everyday and manages to come back alive each time. She does it to feed her people, to keep them alive.Every day, Nasir Ghameq kills. He is …

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS): A Tale of Love, Loss and Goodness

GDC follows the story of Wei Wuxian, a promising young cultivator, considered to be one of the best of his time. He was admired and loved by most. However, a twist of fate leads to him partaking in demonic cultivation, a forbidden art because of which he was shunned by the cultivation world. The admiration …

Orlando by Virginia Woolf: A biography beyond time and sex

Written in the 1920s by British author Virginia Woolf, Orlando is a fictional biography of a character of the same name. Interestingly, Orlando's life spans over 300 years, starting from the Elizabethan Age and going on till the 20th century [I almost feel guilty about revealing this and the following tidbit because it is fun …

The Hathaways series by Lisa Kleypas

Lisa Kleypas is hands down my favourite historical romance writer. Her stories are funny, sexy, and have endearing characters. These days, I've been rereading quite a few of her books after around four years, and to my pleasant surprise, I've been enjoying them as much as I did back then. This is a short review …