Book-cation!

I’ve spent the first month of my summer really, really productively (I’ve finished watching How to Get Away With Murder (S05), This is Us (S01), Special, Selection Day and SO many movies!) – but really, my favourite part has been that I’ve read 14 books this month and jere’s a list of them so you can get inspired to read them as well :

1) 40 Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

2) Is everyone hanging out without me? by Mindy Kaling

3) Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

4) Who says you can’t? You Do by Daniel Chidiac

5) City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

6) The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha

7) City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

8) Does my head look big in this? by Randa Abdel-Fattah

9) City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

10) One flew over the cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey

11) City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

12) The Constant Gardener by ‎John le Carré

13) City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

14) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

 

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Miseducation: Book V/s Movie.

I’ve wanted to read The Miseducation of Cameron Post for as along as I can remember. Emily Danforth’s book talks about Cameron Post, a seventeen year old sent to a Christian Camp for conversion therapy by her Aunt in the 1980’s.

I finally read the book (and really loved it) and then I finally watched the 2018 movie starring Chloë Grace Moretz. The movie is quite good. But I’ve realized that every time I watch a book getting made into a movie, I am usually a little bit disappointed. This is my post on how Book Cameron is different from Movie Cameron.

 

The biggest difference in the book and the movie is how terribly short it is cut to. This is however expected – they cannot make a whole 400 page book to screen. The movie Cameron has a really sad and depressing past that we get to experience, movie Cameron does not.

Book Cameron as her first kiss when she’s eleven years old and movie Cameron is already seventeen when we see her for the first time.

Book Cameron has a crazy summer affair with Lindsey at her swimming meet, and in my personal opinion, Lindsey shapes book Cameron’s personality in many ways and so having no Lindsey in the movie really makes movie Cameron seem very different.

My least favourite part from the movie is the fact that Cameron’s best friend – Jamie is shown completely opposite of what he is in the book. Book Jamie loves Cameron but he realizes and recognizes what Cameron wants and supports her. Movie Jamie doesn’t out her, but movie Jamie is not her best friend.

The movie ends exactly like the book ends (and that was a relief), however with the major sub-plot of Cameron’s parents’ death missing from the movie, the ending doesn’t seem as strong as it does in the book.

Despite everything, The Miseducation of Cameron Post is both a book and a movie worth reading and watching.

Book Review: The Graveyard Book

Over these years at college, I have discovered a ton of new authors. Neil Gaiman, I discovered around 2 years back when I first read The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

After this, Neil Gaiman had regularly been a feature in my books to read list.

The Graveyard Book is exactly as it sounds – mysterious but heart warming. The book tells the story of Nobody, an orphaned boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard!

No matter how kiddish the book sounds, it is so much more than that. It has a brilliant flow of writing and the story keeps you engaged all throughout. The book follows Nobody from his parents’ death, to being five, and inevitably going to school.

Neil Gaiman’s writing is beautiful and extremely easy to grasp. The story is narrated by Nobody and that just makes it easier for anyone to read it.

Fair Warning: I cried at the ending.

Rating: 4/5

Did I just read an e-book?

I’m usually, as a general rule completely against e-books. They’re not the same and they’re not actually books. So, I’ve actually stayed away from a Kindle for a long time. Funnily, I ended up downloading AND reading an e-book!

Last year, I ordered two books b Adam Silvera from Amazon. I always read at college, mostly during lectures because they’re super boring and we have really clueless professors (I mean seriously, there was a guy once rolling a joint on the last bench!)

So, obviously, I was reading in class. And as I was reading in class, my idiotic friend kept talking to me. Now teachers will never ever ever notice you reading in class. You’re sitting in one corner of the class, you aren’t making one iota of noise, so they never notice you. Now, when someone is talking in class, they always notice. Every single time. So, my genius professor caught us and conveniently confiscated my book.

Now the biggest problem with this whole thing was that I had only 20 pages left to finish the book! So I did the only sensible thing to do was (obviously) download the book and finish it, because how could I not?

So, I downloaded an e-book and I read it because the circumstances demanded it and I proudly finished it!

Books and more books?

I’m obsessed with books. Honestly, I feel obsessed is a very simple word, I think my obsession for books needs a word stronger than obsession. Because of this, every year whenever there’s a chance for anyone to gift me, I’m always hoping they gift me books. In fact, I make it a point to let everyone know that I really want, or even need, anything other than books. (It sucks when people don’t follow that)

I met my friend for lunch the other day and she gifted me four books for my birthday! The best part is people always ask me what books I want and I, shamelessly, send them a long list for them to choose from and so I’m always gifted the books I really want – (its a flawless technique, please try it)

I make my brother gift me books (mostly) on every gift-able occasion and I gift myself books of every gift-able occasion and thus currently my To be Read pile consists of 9 books (oops)

All in all, how unhealthy is this obsession? Or how healthy is it? I mean, I learn tons of things from various books, and I find a lot of wisdom between these pages and I’m never bored because I always have a book to read! So really, in the long run, isn’t it much better being obsessed with books than with cocaine?

On a more positive notes, here’s two of my favourite reads from this year!
1) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Mason
2) Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (because why not?)

Top 4 2017 Reads!

My reading this year has actually been really quite slow – Its almost the end of October and I’ve just managed to finish 21 books this year. To be honest, I have zero clue as to why I’ve read so less this year and because of the less reading, instead of doing the usual book lists that I do; I decided to do a list of just my favourite reads from this year. So here are my Top 4 Reads from 2017!

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Sáenz:
My brother gifted me this book that I found on yet another list of books featuring LGBTQ+ protagonists. The book narrates the story of Aristotle, a teenager who makes a new friend in Dante and the two start spending all their time together. Inevitably, Dante falls in love with Aristotle who has spend all his childhood and all of this teenage years running away from people. The book is heartbreaking and breathtaking at the same time and leaves you angry at various points. My favourite part is this conversation between Aristotle and Dante’s mother when he rightly remarks, “There are worse things in the world than a boy who likes to kiss boys and girls who like to kiss girls.”

The Boyfriend by R. Raj Rao:
This is book about a 40 year old gay journalist who falls in love with a 19 year old boy he meets on the Churchgate Station in Mumbai. The book spans through various years and various different people that come in the journalist’s life. There were tons of parts in the book at felt realistic and unrealistic at the same time. The reason I liked this book very much was that it had everything that any of the other LGBTQ+ books I’ve read (kissing, holding hands, sex) and all this was happening in India. The book was completely different from any other book by any other Indian author and I completely loved it!

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell:
Outliers is a non-fiction book that talks about successful people and how they become successful people. I absolutely loved this book. It was by far my favourite book of the year. Through careful analysis and relatable examples, Malcom Gladwell describes how some people succeed and some people don’t. For every single thing he says in his book, he has five different things ready to back it up with. His explanations and theories make a lot of sense and once you start reading, you cannot be putting this book down. He connects ordinary people with exceptionally successful people and finds patterns in the craziest of things. My favourite line is this book with a million great lines is this, “Knowledge of a law student’s test scores is of little help if you are faced with a classroom of clever law students.”

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli:
The book’s main story revolves around Molly, a 17 year old girl who’s had exactly 26 unrequited crushes throughout her life. Molly has a twin sister Cassie, who on the other hand has had exceptional success with boys and girls alike. Molly and Cassie are best friends but their life turns upside down when Cassie starts dating a girl they meet at a concert. Molly instantly starts feeling lonely and at some level, really jealous of her sister. Amongst all of this, Cassie is constantly trying to set Molly up with her girlfriend’s best friend, Will. This book hit a major chord with me and there were various parts that were very relatable. I love Becky Albertalli’s writing and with every sentence she makes you feel more as a part of the story and less just a reader.

The Book List – Part Nine

41) Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang:
This book starts with a young girl driving her Mercedes off a bridge and ending up in a coma. The book is then narrated by one boy who cares way too much and is, and has been invisible to everyone for as far as he can remember. The book is a long struggle of people dealing with a girl who goes off to commit suicide and try to come to terms with it even though most them didn’t like/care about it. Though the book is really good, I didn’t really feel for this girl and I was kind of silently hoping for her to die.

42) The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard:
War stories are some of my favourite stories and thus again, I loved this book. The Book of Aron is narrated by Aron (who’s six, seven or eight years old) and is about how Aron and his family are tormented by the Germans during the Second World War. The book is innocent and sad and ends really sad which I’ve got little bit used to now – its war; they don’t end happy.

43) Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
You need serious long attention spans for this book. This book is so complex and brilliant that just flipping through pages will never be enough. In all honesty however, I finished this book in a hurried manner and never really understood it; it was more of a thing to do ticked off my list. As much as I enjoyed The Picture of Dorian Gray, I couldn’t get the same amount of satisfaction from this one.

44) The King of Torts by John Grisham:
Back to re-reading John Grisham and feeling proud of the degree I shall receive soon. This book was about a lawyer who gives up being a public defender to start a new firm and make tons of money through various of class actions. The book is a classic example of how wanting to make too much money can in fact turn out to be the worst thing you could ever want.

45) Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler:
This book revolves around a married woman who walks out on her family, her husband, her daughters and her sons and doesn’t stop till she reaches an unknown town, with unknown people and starts working all over again. She finds a new family and starts caring for new people and sends zero messages to her family. This book was weird and funny, however there were tons of times when someone who’s really tired of everything and everyone around them to relate to. 

46) Gay Bombay by Parmesh Sahani:
I finished this book on the 26th of December and this was one of my favouritest reads of the year. I loved everything in this book and loved everything this book stood for. This book was a thesis written by Parmesh Sahani for his degree at MIT and was one huge project filled with interviews, and personal experiences and facts and millions, and millions of ideologies and theories that I agreed with 10000000%.
This book made me very happy and very sad at the same time and the only thing I really hated was that the book was published back in 2008 and I read it in 2016. But I would recommend this b book to every single person.

So this ends the 46 books I read in 2016. I was so unbelievably proud of myself. I cried, and I cheered and I felt much more for these books than I did for humans and Idk what I would honestly do if I ever lost my ability to read.