Hello Loves!
February is my most loved month.
My birthday month and one I pin all these hopes and dreams on.
Reading wise, I try to make February as special as possible and try to read my favourite authors only.
This year I did manage to read some favourites but I also read some new-to-to authors.
I read 12 books in total.
Which for me is not the best number. But I was watching so many films this month and doing other life things that occasionally books took a back seat.
I read some history, some literary fiction, some thrillers and a spot of kid lit.
A nice mixed bag of reads.
I also bought some books.
A good-ish month.
Let's jump into my reads and my mini-reviews of the same.
Let's gooooo.
BOOKS OF FEBRUARY:
1. Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor: This book has some unreal levels of hype right now. People and papers (The Guardian) are calling it India's answer to the Godfather. Well, I don't know about that, but this level of hype usually turns me off books. I prefer to wait and let the hype machine calm down before I pick up said book. This time however, I could not resist the hype and decided to see for myself what this buzz was all about.
Well, what did I think?
This is a decent book.
Very alright.
Good in parts, great in some aspects and lacking in others.
I liked several things about it. The writing was good and solid and holds this burgeoning saga abreast from start to finish. The characters in this book come alive and feel like people you'd meet in the real world, none of them seem far fetched or fake. These are people you know or know of.
Also India, particularly Delhi and it's world is portrayed so well. Power, might, corruption, caste based violence and discrimination is shown in all it's true gritty colours. We know this world exists, hell we live in it.
I liked all of it.
Even the romantic relationship in this book felt entirely believable. It's not all roses and wine and magic, it's messy and flawed and like so many relationships that are typical of people in their early 20s.
So about 60% of this book had me all wrapped up in it's hype. I was on board. (Still not sure about the Godfather comparison).
Then, it kinda went a little loopy and lost me and dragged on quite a bit. It just got slowwww and limped along.
I think this is meant to be a trilogy and I am keen on reading it, maybe... but I wish this one kept it's sharper pace till it's very end. Something in the last 40% felt just off and off kilter.
Wasn't a fan of the gory descriptions of the prison sexual violence either. Stomach churning stuff, especially because I know this is so rooted in reality.
3/5
2. The Magic of the Lost Story by Sudha Murty: Read a favourite author and sought some comfort.
Full review done and can be read HERE.
4/5
3. The People of the Indus by Nikhil Gulati with Jonathan Mark Kenoyar: A bit of history and a deep dive into my favourite era of history and my favourite civilization. The Indus Valley or Harappa Civilization has been a period in History I've always found so utterly fascinating. I am always interested in learning more about these people and their lives. This book was a good way to re-visit and re-learn about it and also learn some newer information and some discoveries. I quite enjoyed this. I read this slowly and took my time with it.
3/5
4. Slothida & 5. I Love You More Than my Phone by Dante Fabiero: I read two little comics. About a sloth and a dog and their antics and all kinds of cuteness, these were just so much fun.
3.5/5
I read four thrillers this month and I'll talk about all of them in one go.
6. The Liar's Daughter by Megan Cooley: A book about a young girl who's been freed from her cult and re-united with her birth family and is having a hard time moving from her old life and assimilating with her family and a life free from her old ways. I found this so interesting, I do tend to enjoy books about cults and the power cult leaders hold over their followers, so reading about a person who is still stubbornly holding on to her old values made so much sense. Especially if you came from a cult, which wasn't overtly and obviously abusive. And even if it was, it takes a lot of time and de-programming to find your way back to normal. This was nicely done.
4/5
7. Don't Tell a Soul by Kirsten Miller: A thriller with some serious horror vibes. Very atmospheric and has an old creepy house at the heart of it and an old mystery to boot. Fun and I read this in one sitting. So good.
4/5
8. Death in Shambles by Stephen Alter: Most comfort reading wrapped in a thriller. There is nothing better than a cozy mystery, it's a genre I enjoy so much. This one set in the hills was a respite from the unreasonable Mumbai heat. I enjoyed my time with this book and more so with it's people. The actual mystery was largely alright and pretty straight forward but the overall atmosphere and vibes was what kept me very invested in this book.
I did a review for this one too.
4/5
9. The Writing Retreat by Julia Batrz: This book had me at hello!
I loved so much about it. The setting, the premise of a reclusive horror writer throwing this exclusive writing retreat for emerging talent and things going awry. I was going to eat this book up.
And for 50% I did, this had me hooked and oddly or not so oddly had me motivated to write.
Then came the big reveal, obvious reveal and I wanted to kinda scream a little bit.
It's so silly and so implausible.
Meh.
No.
Disappointing AF.
2/5
10. The One You Leave Behind by Jennifer McMahon: I adore McMahon's dark, moody and atmospheric thrillers. This one split and going back and forth between 1985 and 2010, tells the story of a notorious serial killer and his last victim and her daughter. It was good, a little slow and not as pacy as it needed to be and then the reveal was so painfully obvious and so much in this narrative made no real sense.
2/5
So my thrillers were largely satisfying and two duds, I did enjoyed the journey but in the end two fell kinda flat.
Meh.
Now back to some literary fiction.
11. The Book of Everlasting Things by Aanchal Malhotra: This was my most anticipated read of the year. This came out in the end of December and I waited till February to read it for my birthday. I wanted to read something super special for my special day. I have read and absolutely loved both of Malhotra's previous books, both centered about the Partition. I cannot tell you how much I adore those books and I cannot recommend them enough. Run to pick them up, if you haven't already read them.
When I heard and she was writing her first fiction I was so excited. You know I am a fiction girl through and through, so this was just perfect.
OK, enough preamble.
I liked this book.
Really liked it.
But I didn't love it, it didn't exactly blow my mind.
It was nice, solid debut, very well written and Malhotra clearly has a way with words and always does a pitch perfect job with taking you back to a world and time and place that no longer exists. I love her stories and the tone she takes while talking about the worst things that human beings did and are capable of. She also does a great job of world building, here I felt like I was in Lahore, in the lanes of the old city and walking around in Anarkali.
Yet, something about this didn't 100% work for me.
The in-depth exploration and all the info dumps about Perfumes and Scents and Ittar making felt a little heavy handed and I found myself disconnecting with the story and the narrative. It would pull me out from the story and take me to a deep dive I didn't ask for. I can see and appreciate the research that went into the making of Ittar and it was fascinating to begin with but the more and more we kept hearing about it, I was tuning out. I would have enjoyed this book so much more had these info dumps being slightly culled.
A little less ittar and a little more story.
It is still a beautiful story and full of incredible people that I think you'll enjoy reading about and I do recommend you pick it up.
Just some parts left me feeling wanting a little bit more.
3/5
12. Interrogation by Sunil Gangopadhyay: I read this tiny novella on Bhasha Diwas aka Internation Mother Language Day. I had to read something from my own language, Bangla. I bought this book for my Birthday.
I have only ever read historical fiction by Gangopadhyay.
The wonderful Those Days and First Light and The Last Monarch. I have also read a few Kakababu books. I love his work. I am so grateful for translators and translations that I can read his incredible stories.
This one was the most modern of his works that I've read. A world of phones and crime solving and sadly a world of human trafficking.
This book is one part a straight forward interrogation, a cop and his writer friend are talking to a woman who's been rescued from a prostitution ring and has answer that may help solve a mystery.
But is this woman telling the whole truth?
Is she who she says she is?
Is she hiding something?
Protecting someone?
This novella does such a good job of showing how women are tricked/lured and often times sold into sex work and how their lives change in catastrophic way as a result. It will make you angry and break your heart but it will also show you that goodness exists and sometimes life gives you second chances.
Loved it.
4.5/5
~~~~
So there we go. 12 books read and most of them loved.
I wanted to read more but I didn't force myself to reach some self-ordained goal.
This was good.
12 books bought and 12 books read.
Hope you had a lovely reading month too.
:)
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