If you’ve been on Book Twitter over the past few weeks, you’ll know that an account called Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood tweeted about a book called This is How You Lose the Time War. The tweet blew up, so much that there are now cosplays involving people holding up huge mockups of the book. This became, for me, a case of wanting to jump on the bandwagon, especially since I’d seen this book on a few lists by this point and made a mental note to get to it someday. The tweet came as a final push.
Category Archives: Book Reviews
Life, Living & Livelihood: Short Poems on Life by Santosh Nair | Book Review
I’ve always been entranced with words and the way they come together to make rhythmic sense. When I wasn’t reading them, I was bringing them together, even as a child. My writing journey started when I was around 10 or 11, when I decided to start writing poems. I didn’t know Frost or Dickinson or Gill at the time. All I knew about poetry was that the lines had to rhyme. So it began, with me maintaining notebook upon notebook of these poems. And then came a time when I stopped. Maybe because I grew up.
Santosh Nair’s poetry collection, Life, Living & Livelihood: Short Poems on Life, took me right back to that time, to that corner, to the pages of that notebook.
Dear Girls by Ali Wong | Book Review
A few weeks ago, I borrowed Dear Girls from my local library, thinking about how Ali Wong was a badass woman, an inspiration, and wanting to see what she had to say. Dear Girls, her memoir, is a letter to her daughters in which she recollects things she’s done in her life. She warns them not to read the book before they turn 21 and I agree one hundred percent because boy, oh, boy, there’s some stuff that’s not share-worthy at all. Especially not to one’s daughters. But going into the book, I had some really high expectations – from the book, from actor Ali Wong, and from comedian Ali Wong, and from writer Ali Wong.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan | Book Review
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan was the first book I read in 2023 and almost immediately, in a fit of emotion and productivity, wrote the review. I even uploaded this review to Instagram and Goodreads, too, I think. But somehow, to put my thoughts about this book here, seemed too intimidating for me. Maybe because writing a review on the blog needs me to open up more of myself than I would for the other media. There’s more space here for me to spill my thoughts and I know that once I start, it usually takes me more energy than I can spare to stop. And The Joy Luck Club is a book that makes me do this. Yes, it’s a confusing thing to reconcile oneself with, but it’s still a powerful narrative.
Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai | Blog Tour Stop
Hello and welcome to my blog tour stop for Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s newest book, Dust Child! I was supposed to write a post about the progress I’ve been making on this story. Instead, here I am, writing a full review because of how invested I was in it. Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai does it again with this book, infusing it with a gentle understanding and compassion that makes me such a huge fan of her writing. I read Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s debut novel The Mountains Sing in December 2022 and it marched its way onto my favorites of the year list. That (and more) made the author an instant favorite, propelling Dust Child into my most anticipated book releases of 2023 list.
The Daughters of Madurai by Rajasree Variyar | Book Review
There are some books, very rare, that grab at an issue and twist it until it’s nothing but a bunch of bare threads. Everything that constitutes it is out in the open – circumstances, decisions, relationships, reasons, strengths, weaknesses, heartbreaks – all of it. For us women, especially, each of these threads are as important as the other, because we simply cannot afford to be shortsighted. And yet, push us far enough and we will harness all our strength and push back so hard, you’ll find yourself questioning your reality. Putting all of this – a complex web of feelings and thoughts and decisions – into one book is a feat in itself. And Rajasree Variyar does it in fabulously in The Daughters of Madurai.
The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai | Book Review
Historical fiction is a difficult genre to write in, especially because the times are so far back in the past that you have to be extremely careful with your research. You can’t disrespect the past while you write your story, and you have to get things exactly right. But when authors do get it right, they manage to blow you away in more ways than one and in ways you’ll often not see coming. Among this population of authors is Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, who, after seven years of research, published the book The Mountains Sing, a story set before and during the Việt Nam war. I became an instant fan of her when I finally read it in December 2022. And not just because of the book.
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf | Book Discussion / Thoughts | Part 2
A few months ago, I talked about one of my very first books of 2022: Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. It wasn’t a review, for how can I review a book of that stature? As it stands tall and stands up for women through time and space? As it calls out the misogyny and sexism that we have come to take as ‘normal’? As it shows us why Virginia Woolf is a much-loved figure in English literature? How could I have done all that? No, never in a thousand lives! I merely took my favorite quotes from the book and wrote a piece about why Woolf is so relevant. A book discussion/thoughts of sorts. That was part 1.
And here, finally, is part 2.
Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson | Book Review
There are books that attract you with their covers, some because they have a strong blurb, and some others, just because of the title. This, again, is nuanced, because there are beautiful titles and then there are titles like this book, Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone that makes you think, “Huh! I NEED to know HOW!” It’s a bold statement to make though, and more often than not, the book ends up being a damp squib. But this one lives up to what it promises. Everyone in the protagonist’s family HAS killed someone and we’re about to find out how.
All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami | Book Review
Some books let out war cries as they make their point, some are mere noise but no impact. Some books are quiet as they pack a punch that you will remember until the end of your days, and some are quiet and lazy, giving you a much needed respite from everyday life; they are like vacations in a seaside resort – scenic and calm, but put you in touch with yourself. But yet others are so quiet, move so slowly, and make no overall point whatsoever that it just gets on your nerves. The adventure that you seek in reading, in literature, seems to be missing from such books. And one of my recent reads, Mieko Kawakami’s All the Lovers in the Night, is a prime example of that last type.
The Melodramatic Bookworm 