If I had a dollar for every time I said, “I want to become more consistent with posting here on the blog,” I’d be rich. But life keeps throwing up things that I have no idea how to deal with without retreating, and so, I retreat.
Writing has always been one of the great loves of my life, but of late, it has been difficult. I have lost interest in so many things I love, not because I no longer love them, but because watching the world burn and people be complete poopheads is more distressing at the moment than anything. I understand that this is when we need to hold on to hope the most, and I do. But there are so many people who are making it difficult to believe in the goodness of the world.
I’m planning – I’ve been planning for a while – a whole blog post on the state of the world. I’m planning to post this to my Substack whenever it’s ready. Yes, I started a Substack a while ago and then promptly forgot all about it because of the 10,000 other things taking up space in my mind. But what I’m planning is slowly moving me back towards hope. So if you want to stay updated with them, subscribe to My Substack as well as here. ✌🏽
Meanwhile, as reentry to this very beloved space of mine, I’m going to share with you a few books I’ve read this year and loved, and what I’m currently reading. Let’s go!
SOME BOOKS I’VE LOVED
1. The Sword of Kaigen by ML Wang
A high fantasy standalone that keeps you invested throughout, The Sword of Kaigen is the story of empires, family traditions, imperialism, colonialism, societal culture, misogyny, and more important than most, a gradual unlearning of these structures and in its place, learning to live alongside people you wouldn’t have agreed with. It is packed with brilliant writing and themes that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.
2. Hekate by Nikita Gill
Nikita Gill is a top 2 author/poet for me. Her writing, her poetry is so evocative, it always leaves my heart aching. Hekate did that to me too, although it wasn’t like this at the beginning. This book starts off slow, making you wonder why it is that way, but when it picks up, it PICKS up, if you know what I mean. It is a beautiful telling of the triple goddess and it fills you with rage against the human world as well as that of the divine.
3. The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir by Jennifer Ryan
This was a book I read for a reading vlog on YouTube and was a recommendation from a fellow Booktuber. The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir is a historical fiction novel about the life of women in the little town of Chilbury during World War II. It offers different perspectives of life of women from different societal classes and is a lens into what expectations for women were like during the early 1940s. I must say, however, that it was oblivious about the actions of the UK across the world i.e. colonialism and the brutality that came with it. I don’t know if I can blame it for it, but I can put it aside for a second to say that the story of this town itself was compelling.
4. King of Wrath (King of Sins #1) by Ana Huang
I didn’t like the author’s Twisted series because the men in them were truly arseholes. So I was really surprised when I ended up LOVING this book. Yes, it’s icky that this series is about billionaires. But trust me when I say that Huang does a good job of making these romances utterly believable and of making sure that we don’t hate said billionaires. Dante and Vivian’s story was nothing but oohs and aahs and “you fxcking idiot”s and lots of swooning. I’ll any day take a Dante over a Bezos or a Musk. Those two can- you know what? Imma stop.
5. Heroines by Ira Mukhoty
Ira Mukhoty’s historical writing is one of the best things I’ve discovered in the last couple of years. Daughters of the Sun is *chef’s kiss* and though Heroines isn’t as comprehensive as DOTS, it is still powerful on its own. It gives you short, abridged histories of 8 powerful and influential women from Indian history while analysing how these women were affected by the societies they were born into and how they transcended the rules to be written into the annals of history. Love!
6. The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House by Audre Lorde
I don’t think this book needs a description, at least not from a Audre Lorde noob like me. But I will say that I am grateful to myself for having picked this book up because it is nothing short of incisive brilliance! Audre Lorde, a master herself of the art of writing, talks about poetry, feminism, rightful anger, Black community and the importance of standing together, and the behaviour of white women towards Black women. It should be compulsory reading for everyone.
7. Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
I won an exclusive Waterstones edition of this book in a giveaway hosted by the author 2 years ago and I’m kicking myself for not having read this until now. Like her debut book, Ace of Spades, this book is also something that will carve your heart and guts out and fill you with rage. There’s something about reading a YA mystery that starts of slow and then drops an anvil on you that reminds you of the filth of the world we live in. And that filth is filthiest for the girls, a fact that I’m trying SO hard to not dwell on because I might punch a wall.
8. Girls Who Said Nothing & Everything by Meera Vijayann
I finished this book just yesterday and let me tell you this — Girls Who Said Nothing & Everything says everything that you will HARD relate to if you’re an Indian woman. It is a collection of autobiographical essays, the author’s debut, in which she talks about growing up in India in a complicated familial and societal situation. There’s been a weight on my chest ever since I can remember and this book reminded me of it even more. I’m going to be shouting about it from the rooftops for a long time to come.
WHAT I’M CURRENTLY READING
I’ve always been someone who ALWAYS has multiple books on her currently reading list. But something has shifted in me this year—maybe because my body and mind are begging me to move away from chaos and towards simplicity. So I’ve decided that I’m only going to read one book at a time from here on out. And as much as I love reading multiple books in parallel, I think that would just push me over the edge right now.
Here’s what I’m reading at the moment:
I’m only about 38 pages into Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, written by Hwang Bo-Reum and translated from the Korean by Shanna Tan, and I’m loving it already. It is a love letter not only to bookshops, but to the people running them, and it shows the amount of effort that goes into running and maintaining them. It has been on my TBR for ages now and I’m so glad I decided to pick it up with a friend whose dream is to open a book cafe. Safe to say, this book is validating every single one of her dreams and I’m here for it!
So that’s what I’ve been up to. Do we have any books in common? What books have you enjoyed recently? What are you currently reading? 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 