My previous Recent Reads blog posts were reading wrap ups in which I talked about ALL the books I read in the mentioned months. But today, the content in here, while being a collection of mini book reviews, is also a random collection of books that I’ve read in recent times. I’ve reviewed these books on Instagram, also where these reviews are from. Yeah, I know, I’m a genius, reusing my content across platforms. 😛 The point is, I’m really proud of these reviews and wanted to share them with you here.
I’ll leave the links to my IG reviews alongside each book, if you’d like to go and check them out. (Do follow too, because I’m more active there than I am here.)
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
When I had requested this book way back when, I’d found the title intriguing. There was a library involved and what it seemed to promise to be: a murder mystery. And though both of these are true, it missed a crucial part of the whole setup – that of being coherent.
While I get that some mysteries take some time to build on the premise, to be slow in doling out chunks of information to the readers so that they can savor it as they do, they also need to be able to hold the reader’s attention and not make want to roll their eyes back into their heads. Though The Woman in the Library starts off with a promising premise, it doesn’t manage to keep my attention and some of the ‘character studies’ were so bare, rough, and obvious that I rolled my eyes so hard, I still feel the after effects.
The Woman in the Library is about four people who happen to meet in a library and become friends when they live through what can only be described as a coincidence. A woman’s scream rents the air, giving them a common talking point, and how the story went from there tested my patience while keeping me invested – a strange combination to be.
Everything seemed contrived and abrupt, like a Jenga tower at the end of its tether. The part at the end of each chapter where the fictional Australian author Hannah corresponds with her American ‘friend’ Leo had me sighing in irritation. That whole plot point was probably not necessary and yet, as I think of how it would look if it were to be removed from the book – I can’t contemplate it. Which is strange. And it annoys me even more!
I usually tend to like open endings, trust me, because they leave so much room for interpretation. But in a book that’s tested my patience like this, I like to know that I’ve walked away with a story that’s been wrapped up well. That ending wasn’t left open for interpretation; it was left open to keep that itch alive in my brain.
My talking about the book might give you the impression that I HATED it. I did not. As I’ve mentioned before, I was invested even though I didn’t find the payoff to be great. And that’s the gist of what I felt about this book. Nothing else to add.
The Vitals by Tracy Sorensen
I wonder sometimes what happens inside my body, what the conversations are like between the cells that are fighting to be comfortable and those that are fighting to bring me pain. As someone with a chronic disease, I don’t imagine every one of them to be any less than a battle. And yet, this isn’t the bloodiest conversation anyone can be having.
The Vitals is Tracy Sorensen’s memoir that tells her experience with peritoneal cancer. She isn’t the one narrating this story, but her organs. Through this storytelling that has come out from a ton of research, she shows us how we should be looking at our bodies and how we should be curious of our inner workings. And it is one of the most original nonfictions disguised as fiction that I’ve ever read.
It is an amalgamation of many different genres, each more engaging than the last. There’s a romance, a thriller, a mystery, a domestic fiction – all with a subversive element of fantasy. It is an ecosystem of its own and is so well-written since at one point, I got so invested in the plot that I almost forgot where it was set and who the principal characters were. But the details are so intricate, so well-fleshed out (pun not intended), and so well imbibed, that it is impossible for you to actually really forget anything about it.
Liv the liver, Kelly the gall bladder, Gaster the stomach, Col the colon, Rage the spleen, Panno the pancreas, Ute the uterus, a wandering womb, Peri the peritoneum are among the principal characters that we hear from, their experience with bringing Baby and Bunny, two tumors that look like they aren’t stopping anytime soon.
When we say we have an ‘inner battle’ going on, we usually mean it in a figurative way. But Tracy Sorensen takes this concept and turns it into a literal inner battle and tells her story, her battle with cancer in such an original and witty way, it makes you laugh and cry at the same time. By the end of the book, she’d been in remission for 8 years, but unfortunately, her cancer has returned. She calls it a ‘cosmic joke’, which is understandable because the book itself is about surviving cancer.
Irrespective of what genre you usually prefer, do try to read this one. It’s absolutely brilliant and one that I will always recommend.
Instagram Review: The Vitals
Pageboy by Elliot Page
The hate that society directs towards anyone not fitting in its idea of ‘normal’ is disgusting to say the least. I don’t even understand adding ‘phobia’ to ‘queer’ because ‘phobia’ means fear while what we see is just ugly hatred. And this hatred has become glaringly, outrageously outspoken over the past few years. People claim to not understand queer people, that pronouns aren’t ‘real’, that they have trouble reconciling with the change in the names. Yet, these very people have no problem changing a woman’s title from ‘Miss’ to ‘Mrs’, even the surname, once she gets married. There’s no making sense of them anymore.
I didn’t know a lot about Elliott Page’s story, only what made it to the news, and we all know how that goes. Which is why I wanted to read his memoir that released this year.
Pageboy is a collection of Elliott’s introspections, him recollecting his childhood, his familial relationships, his romantic relationships, his friendships, his struggle with gender and sexuality, and finding himself. My heart broke as I read his account even as fury took hold of my insides – anger at the world’s hypocrisy and lack of empathy, at how society has conditioned family to turn against family, at the selfish near-sightedness of people, at their lack of acceptance. You see Elliott for who he is through everything he has been through.
But do you ever have books that say so much but at the end of which all your brain does is buzz? Like… There end up being so many things up in the air that you don’t know how to definitively think of the book in question? Pageboy did that to me.
The writing style in here leaves much to be desired. In an attempt to show the intensity of his experiences, so many of which are harrowing, Elliott purples the prose, trying to make it poetic. But it merely comes off as disjointed. Add to this the nonlinear narrative in which he tells his story and Pageboy becomes a less than pleasant experience language and writing-style-wise, no thanks to the whiplash you get every time you read it.
I’ll only say this: Don’t let my opinion of the book stop you but keep these in mind as you read it.
Instagram Review: Pageboy
The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay
This is a sequel to Ross Gay’s earlier book, The Book of Delights, and is similarly, as the name suggests, a collection of essays in which the author talks about his everyday delights. Some are random, some are well thought out, some make you nostalgic, some put a big smile on your face, and some others will make you wonder if everyone in the world is living the exact same life. Many are heartwarming and will settle in your heart for eternity. But my gripe with this book – one I couldn’t ignore – is that the writing felt disjointed to me, like the author kept stacking on things he kept remembering to the ends of sentences. That and that alone put me off the writing, bringing me to a grinding halt at 81%. The afterthought-style is so overwhelming that despite me being close to finishing the book, I just couldn’t go on.
But that doesn’t mean the book won’t work for you. If you don’t mind this kind of lengthy writing, if you want to read about positive, affirming delights, you should try this one.
Instagram Review: The Book of (More) Delights
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Janina Duszejko is a woman in her 60s, living on the Czech-Polish border. She is an English teacher in a nearby school and doubles as a caretaker for the houses around hers in the absence of their owners. She believes in astrology and William Blake, and when people start turning up dead, she is convinced it’s because of the stars and airs her opinions about it all, much to the skepticism of the people around her. But what will happen when people DO take her seriously and not in the way she thought they would?
This book gets a lot of things right, the most important being giving a voice to the voiceless and demanding justice in the face of wrongs done to them. Diverting attention from oneself by using one’s character traits as a facade and using geography to one’s advantage are things that elevate this book, something you realize when you near the end and everything is revealed. Human frailty and arrogance are displayed in equal measure and they will frustrate and anger you in equal measure.
But what frustrated me even more is how the structure of the book. The first 150 pages felt like they were fluff interspersed with a few plot points. The author does make important points but none crucial enough for the plot itself, making you wonder what connects them all. And that’s not a positive thing to think about a book. But there is a chilly earnestness to the story that when you look back and think about it, you’ll see that it was, in fact, all that was supposed to be picked up across the book.
I’ll still recommend this book because of this very earnestness, the passion with which the author has written Duszejko’s story. You might not like it completely, but you might find some value in it.
Instagram Review: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, tr. by Geoffrey Trousselot
Before Your Memory Fades is the third in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and translated into English by Geoffrey Trousselot. While the first two books follow the goings-on in Cafe Funiculi Funicula, we move to Hakodate, where Cafe Donna Donna offers customers the same opportunity to go back in time, but with strict caveats: they can’t leave their seat, they can’t meet anyone who hasn’t visited the cafe, and they have to drink the coffee before it gets cold. And no matter what they do, their actions in the past won’t affect the present.
While I adored the first book, I thought the second one, Tales from the Cafe wasn’t as effective as the first. But with Before Your Memory Fades, we’re back to that first level of adoration, that first level of translation that inspires awe, with emotions and life lessons galore running riot across the page and then into my heart. That’s the beauty of this series, second book included – it is easy to read because of the language, but it’s also not, because of the flood of feelings. It is greatly nostalgic, for it makes you imagine what it would be like to travel back in time. It asks a lot of questions, it helps you ease the ache in your chest, it holds your hand and gives you hope, and most of all, it embraces you, empathizing with you through its own story.
This book is one that takes so much of you as it goes, but it also gives you a lot more than that. And for that, I will always be a fan of this series.
Here’s a Paul McCartney quote that this book reminded me of, that was first brought to my attention by Jhumpa Lahiri, the maestro herself:
“I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.”
Instagram Review: Before Your Memory Fades
The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar
“What a monster time is, laying to waste everything in its path, destroying youth and beauty, even tarnishing memory. Maybe that was the only thing humans had to fear – the steady ticktock, the relentless current. Because, ultimately, what was death, even, other than the ceasing the clock?”
Thrity Umrigar’s newest book, The Museum of Failures, is a lesson in seeing the undertones, to acknowledging them while staying kind to oneself, to emerge from seeing ourselves as a museum of failures. We follow Remy Wadia, who’s returning to India to adopt a child and plans to visit his mother, almost as an afterthought. But he discovers that she is unwell, has stopped speaking, and is now in the hospital. Guilt eats at him and he decides to help her recover before returning to his life in the USA. But as time passes, he discovers truths and family secrets that shake him to his core. What Remy does in the face of his foundations crumbling remains to be seen.
Thrity Umrigar is a master storyteller, taking these questions about familial relationships and secrets, life and death, love, faith, and forgiveness, and turning them into points to ponder with the wide-lensed perspective that she offers. She does all of this with such empathy and kindness, so beautifully, that even though you find yourself swinging from one end of the radar to the next in how you feel about these characters, you just see it all. You question yourself and everything you know – the mark of a great book and a great author.
The first half of the book does feel a stretch, but there’s beauty in its slow pace, not frustration. When the characters go over their experiences multiple times, it might seem like unnecessary repetition, but you will appreciate it in the second half, when everything comes out in the open. They say the devil is in the details but in this book, the smallest details have such mind-numbing explanations that you readily forgive everything that you thought was negative about it.
If you’ve never read a Thrity Umrigar book, let this be the one you start with. One of my few 5 stars of 2023!
Instagram review: The Museum of Failures
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
This book broke me.
Michelle Zauner writes about her mother, her relationship with her mother, her mother’s cancer and death, and how it tore Michelle apart in this memoir that has now torn me apart.
I started reading this in a cafe and promptly burst into tears.
I read this before bed and promptly burst into tears.
I read this, trying to dissociate from the story but failing miserably, and promptly burst into tears.
I read this and turned the last page yesterday, and promptly burst into tears.
Michelle Zauner wrote this book with such feeling and clarity that it felt like I was her for the entirety of its 239 pages. It tugged at my heart and left me thinking things I never want to think. There’s so much that goes into caring for a cancer patient on the brink of death, so much that needs to be skipped over or handled with compassionate tact. And when Michelle Zauner spoke about it all, it hollowed me from within. All I want to do is give her a big, loving hug, for words fail me.
All I can say in the end is: if you haven’t read it yet, please do.
Instagram Review: Crying in H Mart
The Long Game by Elena Armas
Elena Armas’s third novel is a combination of sports fiction and contemporary romance, although the romance takes higher precedence here. I wasn’t a fan of The Spanish Love Deception but I really enjoyed The American Roommate Experiment. The Long Game was another test, I guess, with me having no idea about where I’d end up on the radar.
Adalyn Reyes works as a manager for a soccer team her dad owns but when an unflattering video of hers goes viral, her dad sends her to a small town to prove herself again. She is determined to turn this team’s fate around but is shocked to find that these players are nine-year-old girls. Cameron Caldani, a famous retired goalkeeper, is also in town, for reasons he doesn’t want made public. He is ready to help Adalyn but they soon find themselves butting heads, although it would bode both of them well to remember that they’re working towards the same goal. What does the long game have in store for them?
This is a wholesome romance in more ways than one. There’s friction, there’s understanding, there’s raw, organic love and respect, there’s intimacy – so much that I love in a love story. Watching Adalyn and Cameron’s chemistry simmer and boil scratches every itch for a reader who loves contemporary romance.
Having said that, I do think that the book could have been so much crisper. There’s a lot of repetitive fluff that could have been chopped and turned into a better read. While some parts are fabulously written, some others feel like cheap knockoffs, which is a shame because the plot itself is great.
On the whole, if you are a fan of contemporary romances, this is one you can definitely pick up!
Instagram review will be up soon!
Before We Say Goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, tr. by Geoffrey Trousselot
The last in the Before the Coffee Cold series, Before We Say Goodbye was a book that I got super excited for super quick. First of all, the cover! Second of all, a continuation of one of the most heartwarming series of all time? Of course! Sign me up! Third and last, exploring the lives of four more fictional people as they go on a short journey back in time, with caveats, and find out truths, secrets, and closure? Hell yes!
While the third book moved to Cafe Donna Donna in the Japanese hillside, we return to Cafe Funiculi Funiculi in Before We Say Goodbye, almost as an emotional manner of the titular goodbye.
A husband wants to communicate with his wife, who is currently in a coma. A woman, guilt-ridden for not having been with her dog in the last moments, wants to say goodbye. A woman who didn’t answer a proposal but was soon dumped because her boyfriend had met someone else. A daughter who lashed out at her father, wanting to move away from what she saw as his controlling ways. All of them want to travel back in time, but find that they can’t change anything due to the cafe’s rigid rules.
These books are so warm and hopeful and emotional that every story changes something in you. This book was no different. Especially the story of the dog – when I realized what was happening, I almost broke down. And the daughter-father story has me in two minds but it’s still one that made me smile and tear up. Plus, given that it’s so easy to read, there’s a kind of whiplash going because of how quickly these emotions overcome you, in quick succession. Sometimes, that’s all we need as a form of catharsis.
It sometimes does get a little regressive, with some of the characters’ thoughts fixating on old-fashioned ways of how people should be and on societal norms for acceptance. It did prick at my mind, just like how 175 pages weren’t enough because I would have liked more details. Plus, the translation seemed a tad bit off, like it was in the second book, Tales from the Cafe.
Other than that, Before We Say Goodbye is a great way to bid goodbye to this series. But I’ll always want to read more of these stories. Here’s hoping (probably in vain) that we get a new book in this series!
Instagram review will be up soon!
So those were some mini book reviews I had for you today. What did you think of these books I read recently? Have you read any of them? What were some of your recent reads? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!
I’ll see you in the next blog post.
Until next time, keep reading and add melodrama to your life! ❤
The Melodramatic Bookworm 
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