I finished reading After the Quake yesterday and like every other Murakami book, I absolutely loved it. The best part about the book is that it has stories that barely span twenty pages and that makes it really easy to read. There are six stories and I think for anyone who has never read Murakami before, this is the best book to start with.
The whole month of December that I’ve been home, I’ve read a ton of new books almost to make up for the massive amount of books I did not read in the months before – these are the books I ended my year with:
1) From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon : I really liked parts of this book and really disliked parts of this book. The story follows Twinkle Mehra, a high school student who aspires to become a movie director and then gets chance to direct a movie for an upcoming festival along with another student who’s the twin brother of her longtime crush. Various parts of the book are really high school-ish and various choices that Twinkle made really infuriated me. Despite all that, the book is a fresh read.
2) Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy : I had been so excited to read this book for so long and it really lived up to everything I’d heard about it. Dumplin’ is the story of Willowdean who’s the teenage daughter of a former beauty queen in a small town. Will decides to run for the beauty pageant as a protest against everything she’s felt since her aunt passed away. The book tests Willowdean’s friendships, and relationships, and her mother and is really, really engaging. The ending of the book disappointed me a bit and I felt like it ended really abruptly.
3) The Chosen One by Sam Bourne : This was the second book that I read by Sam Bourne and it was as good and as crazy as the first one was. The book follows the story of Maggie Castello, the political advisor for the President of the United States who’s presidency is threatened by an anonymous source revealing secrets that would lead to impeachment. The book follows Maggie across the country as she tries to protect the man she ran a successful campaign for, and the ending will shock you.
5/5 for this book!
4) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas : This was another book that I was really exited for but really disappointed by the ending. The book starts with Starr Carter, a high school student watching from the passenger side seat as her friend is shot dead by a white policeman. Starr then goes from staying far away from the shooting to standing up for her community. The book is a really easy read, but it felt like it ended way too soon.
[Side Note: Both Dumplin’ and THUG are now movies!].
5) Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman : Eleanor is a middle aged woman who lives alone, works as an accountant, talks to her mom every Wednesday and has an extremely routine life. The book follows her story as various things end up disturbing her routine and making Eleanor step out of her comfort zone. The book is really good. It keeps you engaged throughout because you really want to unravel Eleanor’s history, and in other parts you can’t help but feel for Eleanor and everything she has gone through. I was also really satisfied by the ending.
6) Fool me Once by Harlan Coben : I’ve wanted to read Harlan Coben books since a real long time, and if you’ve ever thought about reading them too – this is a GREAT book to start with! The book is essentially a murder mystery where the protagonist tries to find out who killed her husband. The ending of the book is quite mind-blowing and the whole storyline is so engaging that you’ll always be surprised.
7) Counting by 7’s by Holly Goldberg Sloan : Counting by 7’s is the story of a twelve year old girl who loses her parents and her life is turned upside down when she suddenly finds herself surrounded by people who cannot understand her at all. Slowly, she makes a new family and the ending of the book is this small hurrah you know she deserves.
I discovered Murakami last year and I fell in love. Murakami’s writing is simple and so easy to follow, that you never feel like putting the book down. But then sometimes his writing is so difficult to follow that you have no choice but to put it down after a chapter or so. Funnily, Kafka is both.
Kafka on the shore is a book that follows two stories running parallelly but you know that ultimately they will meet. It follows Kafka, a 15 year-old boy running away from home and it follows Nakata, a 60 year-old man looking for a cat. Kafka is running away from his father because he refuses to believe that life has in store for him what his father thinks. Nakata is looking for a cat because he can speak to cats. The book alternates between both their stories with a million things overlapping between them but you don’t really realize that till you are done. Kafka took me a really long time to finish. Mostly because at times the book would suddenly take a 360 degree turn and leave me mind boggled. But every time I felt that, every time I wanted to go back and read it.
I will admit that Kafka has parts (maybe chapters) that will confuse you. That will make you feel like the story isn’t going in any real direction. My advice is this: Get through these parts. Because when you do, you will thank me. Kafka will take you some time to read. It will make you think and maybe make you re-read something because you didn’t really get it. But like every other Murakami book, Kafka will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading it.
Rating: 3.7/5.0
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 here’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
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 book Cameron has a really sad and depressing past that we get to experience, movie Cameron does not.
Book Cameron has 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.
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
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!
