An enemies-to-lovers trope, Unhoneymooners is the story of Olive and Ethan, who just are thrown together because of a series of events. They cleared up their misunderstandings and they lived happily ever after.
Sometimes when people around you label you as unlucky, it plays on your mind. I don’t believe in the luck factor, but when people believe in it fanatically, it affects people around them.
This book was chosen by the members of my book club. It’s an easy read, reads like a movie, and could imagine a few actors for the roles too.

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This book has a very unusual start. There are cop duos but not the confident, professional, out-to-catch-in-a-snap kind of cops, bonded but lacking the chemistry of the usual on-screen cops. Then there is a bank- robber, who is again an unusual one, who lacks confidence, is unsure, and is not the usual stick-em-up kind of a robber. The bank robbery turns into a hostage situation but the victims don’t behave the way they should. The book is hilarious. The author is very insightful and depicts human emotions, behaviour, and relationships beautifully.
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I had come across the term Stockholm Syndrome somewhere. It is defined as the condition in which the victim empathises with the captor. So now you understand the situation in the book.
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This is my second book by Fredrick Backman. I've read A Man Called Ove and fell in love with the grumpy old Ove. All the characters in this book are lovable except for a character called Zara, who is rather irritating but we do come across such people in life who can make us feel small and inconsequential. As we read on we understand Zara’s life better and can relate to her. but I ended up loving Zara too towards the end.
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The book covers difficulties faced by people due to finance, loans, affordability, banks, love, marriage, career and many more problems.
Overall an amazing book, so relatable and heart-warming.
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Whom do you like to hang out with: a whining, negative person or a person brimming with life and positive energy?
My father always used to ask me to think positively because negative thoughts attract negative events.
I love the quote ‘I THINK THEREFORE I AM’ by Rene Descartes and made popular by Billie Eilish.
As a man thinketh, is a book which talks about how human life is manoeuvred by their thoughts. According to the author, there is no such thing as luck, instead, a person can accelerate or decelerate the advent of good outcomes purely through his/her feelings.
There are some amazing quotes in the book which are worthy of one's contemplation. The book requires multiple rereads because it is not something that transforms us in one read. I don’t think people around me can see my halo yet!
The book is a short and easy read. I can't see myself changing the way I think that easily. The daily struggles of life do pull me down and it takes some time to bounce back energised.
Quote from the book: DREAMS ARE THE SEEDLINGS OF REALITIES’ – I agree but it is tough to transform any dream into reality to which he quotes: ‘HE WHO WOULD ACCOMPLISH LITTLE MUST SACRIFICE LITTLE; HE WHO WOULD ACHIEVE MUCH MUST SACRIFICE MUCH; HE WHO WOULD ATTAIN HIGHLY MUST SACRIFICE GREATLY.’
To sum up THE BOOK, humans are or become whatever, because of their thoughts. Humans are a so-called ‘evolved species’ because they think but their thoughts make them or break them!
 

SEA PRAYER BY KHALED HOSSEINI
I have now read all the books of Khalid Hosseini, all of them being evocative tales.
Sea prayer is a poetic letter from a father to his son. An illustrated book that portrays the crisis faced by refugees and the two-year-old Syrian boy Alan who died by drowning along with his mother and brother, as they were refugees trying to reach Europe from Turkey.
I would like to share a few very lines, which I thought were very touching:
These are only words. 
A father’s tricks. 
It slays your father, 
your faith in him. 
Because all I can think tonight is 
how deep the sea, 
and how vast, how indifferent. 
How powerless I am to protect you from it.

What do we expect of our friends? Or should we not expect anything from them? Is friendship a balance of give and take? Other than the fact that friends are those having the same intellectual and emotional vibes, one who doesn’t take you for granted, what qualities do we see in a potential friend?
A little life is a story about four friends, who meet at the undergrad level, Jude, Willem, Malcolm, and JB. Willem's love for Jude is magical. An orphan, Judea at the age of thirty gets adopted by an angelic guy named Harold. I adored the part where Harold adopts Jude. And I loved the character too.
Jude is a brilliant, handsome guy with a slight limp due to his spinal injury. He has had a traumatic past where he was raped, sexually abused, and tortured even. The past torments him throughout the book due to which he fears any relationship. He is self-loathing, self-harming, self-doubting,
finding no salve for his mental gnawing. Jude’s past and its psychological impact were depressing and heartbreaking.
The beginning of the book felt like Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, where we see struggling youngsters and part of the book read like Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. The author has done an amazing job of writing about a traumatic, sexually abused person and how it affects him throughout his life. It read like Lolita, being narrated from Lolita’s point of view. The toughest reads were the parts he'd hurt himself. I felt horrible reading those parts.
Although he has another amazing friend who is an orthopaedic surgeon, Andy who helps him through many situations, he rarely refers him to a therapist. He visits the therapist almost towards the end and mostly avoids going to him. It would have been so much easier if he had been to a therapist right from the time he was at the university. But why didn't he go to a therapist from the beginning?? And why didn’t Andy, Willem and Harold force him to see a therapist?
He gets lucky finding amazing friends and an ever-loving father, all of whom love him for his outlook and the good soul that he is rather than his appearance or his so-called ‘flaws’.
In an interview that I watched on YouTube, the author says that the book is a fairy tale/fantasy which means the friendship portrayed is highly improbable. It’s exactly like Cinderella, who magically gets a fairy godmother when she is in distress.
It is a depiction of a perfectly ideal situation, where there are friends who dote on him forever, giving utmost care and love selflessly, prioritizing Jude over themselves. Life is full of difficulties and hardships, people don't like to hear about illnesses, injuries, and pains. Often, they sympathise but do not empathise. If one were to recreate these situations in real life such people might not exist or might not be so involved.
It’s a brilliantly written book with some amazing quotes but a tragic tale not meant for the weak-hearted!

REVIEW OF LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE
 
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." – Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

The first book is THE HENNA ARTIST, the second is THE SECRET KEEPER OF JAIPUR and the Third and final is THE PERFUMIST OF PARIS.
I enjoyed all three books equally. I was dying to read this book and I was jumping with joy when I finally got it.
The Perfumist of Paris is set in the 70s and is mainly about Radha’s journey as a career woman as well as how she strikes a work-life balance. Radha works as a perfumist and is the mother of two girls Shanti and Asha. Problems arise when her architect husband Pierre demands that she stay home to take care of the house and the children. The internal turmoil between the mother and the working woman is very relatable. Her possessiveness when children are concerned, and her fear that her children might love her less; all these angsts are depicted beautifully. Tormented by her memories, she tries to steer clear of anything that reminds her of her past and keeps it bottled up.
Radha is mesmerized and drawn towards the world of fragrances and considers it her calling. I admire Radha’s resilience, and determination, towards her work as well as her love and pride for her children.
I just love the bond between the sisters Lakshmi and Radha. Lakshmi always acts as a pillar of support for Radha and knows Radha in and out, assessing her mood by just looking at her face or the tone of her voice.
The character Florence, Radha’s mother-in-law, was great. One often is delusional about mothers-in-law. I wouldn’t like to describe much as some things can be enjoyed more while reading.
The book is sprinkled all over with facts and information about aromas, their origins, and the fragrance industry. The beautiful descriptions of the perfumes, the exotic locale, Paris, Radha’s drive to make an exquisite perfume, the difficulties she faced at work, her attention to detail, her empathetic nature, her zest for learning, and the overall plot; all in all, an amazing grand finale to the trilogy.
All loose ends get tied up perfectly in this book.
What repercussions does she face due to her choices? Read it to know it!

POD BY LALINE PAULL, SHORTLISTED FOR WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023
HAPPY WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY!
It is an apt book for the day!
“THE OCEAN IS ALWAYS WAITING FOR US. WE ARE PART OF HER; SHE IS PART OF US.”
There is an author's note at the end of the book, which talks about how the author had to study several marine species, refer to encyclopaedias, and websites and had to talk to concerned people; to write this book.
A dystopian, fantasy, magical realism, and nature writing. It reads like a well-researched book with loads of information about sea creatures, their scientific names, their habitat etc.
“TO SPIN LIKE EVERYONE ELSE WAS THE KEY TO FITTING IN, AND IF SHE COULD ONLY HEAR THE MUSIC OF THE OCEAN LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, SHE TOO WOULD BE ABLE TO TUNE IN AND DO IT.”
The story revolves mainly around Ea, a spinner dolphin of the remote and peaceful Longi tribe. Ea leaves her tribe and ventures out into the vast ocean. Ea’s life revolves around the pod, consisting of the Longi tribe and its spinner dolphins and the notorious megapod, consisting of the Tursiops tribe and its common bottlenose dolphins. Ea meets Wrasse, Rorqual, the melancholic whale and Google and members of the Tursiops tribe.
She witnesses fights, politics, thugs, murder, rape, pollution, and cultural differences between the two clans. She faces tumultuous problems herself, making the story dark, gloomy and disturbing.
I loved the character Google, a dolphin bred in captivity which gets lost in the sea. It was sad to see him feeling helpless. He kept reiterating that anthrops love them, which I found very cute.

Parts of the anthropomorphic structure felt like George Orwell’s Animal Farm as they used to talk and contest with authority within their clan and fight with the members of another clan. Moreover, there was a very evident power struggle.

“THE TRUTH IS HARD TO BELIEVE, HARDER TO BEAR.”
The author has beautifully integrated the horrors of marine pollution caused by humans, oil spills, discarded fishing nets, plastic, and sound pollution into the story. These and other environmental factors which affect oceanic life.
I found this read tough and quite academic and it took me some time to gyrate to the beats of the book.
Give it a whirl if you love reading about oceanic creatures. 

When one talks about love, why is it that people only look at the romantic aspect of it? Why don’t people ever look at the love a mother has towards her children or the love between two siblings, or even the love a dog has towards its master or just love for a fellow human?
Is love eternal or ephemeral?
“A LIFE WITHOUT LOVE IS OF NO ACCOUNT. DON’T ASK YOURSELF WHAT KIND OF LOVE YOU SHOULD SEEK, SPIRITUAL OR MATERIAL, DIVINE OR MUNDANE, EASTERN OR WESTERN. DIVISIONS ONLY LEAD TO MORE DIVISIONS. LOVE HAS NO LABELS, NO DEFINITIONS. IT IS WHAT IT IS, PURE AND SIMPLE. LOVE IS THE WATER OF LIFE. AND A LOVER IS A SOUL OF FIRE! THE UNIVERSE TURNS DIFFERENTLY WHEN FIRE LOVES WATER.”
One story is about a lady named Ella, who is a wife, a mother of three and who recently picked up a job as a part-time reader for a literary agent, a perfect-looking family, a dog, and a beautiful house. She reads a book which changes her outlook towards life completely. I admired Ella for her patience and spirit. It’s tough being a mother of teenagers and facing other multitudes of disappointments in life.
Another story is about Rumi and Shams. Rumi’s adopted daughter Kimya, loves Shams. The part that hurt me the most was when Shams dumps her on their first night after marriage and eventually Kimya dies due to the sadness inflicted upon her. Shams, being a person who could even foretell anybody’s future, couldn’t see how deeply Kimya loved Shams and longed for him. Moreover, Aladdin loved Kimya and wanted to marry her. Again, why couldn’t he foresee that?
The book is divided into five parts: Earth, water, wind, fire, and void. A beautifully written book, with multiple narratives, it is sprinkled with soulful quotes, which are worth pondering. The parallel narratives incite curiosity as one yearns to know what happens next in both stories.
“LOVE IS THE WATER OF LIFE. AND A LOVER IS A SOUL OF FIRE! THE UNIVERSE TURNS DIFFERENTLY WHEN FIRE LOVES WATER.”
I reread this book with the members of our book club and we had an amazing time dissecting the book.
Dive into this spiritual quest of Rumi and Shams that transforms Ella, the protagonist!

FIRST TAMIL BOOK LONGLISTED FOR INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE.

The word Pyre by itself is very upsetting and the dictionary meaning of the word is ‘a heap of combustible material, especially one for burning a corpse as part of a funeral ceremony.’ The book in Tamil was called Pookuzhi (the pit of Fire). I do not know how to read or write Tamil, otherwise, I would have read the book in Tamil.
Pyre is a very distressing tale of two lovers, Saroja and Kumaresan of different castes,  who marry, without the knowledge of their elders.
The worst part is that though Kumaresan brings his wife to his village, even his mom refuses to acknowledge her and the whole community starts humiliating, hurting and even ostracising them. The narrative and the translation are so beautiful that I could feel Saroja's helplessness and claustrophobia.
A heartrending tale, set in a rustic background reminds me of some of the Tamil movies I have watched with rural settings and the dirges rendered by Kumaresans mother reminded me of similar dirges in those movies.
Till the end, one keeps hoping that the story will take a turn and will change into a happily-ever-after kind of tale.
Should children always do what their parents expect them to do even when they are adults? Can they have the freedom to select their partners? What is the role of society in the life of a married couple? How much can parents interfere in their children's lives once they are married? Are children indebted to society and their parents? Do animals also behave like these evolved humans?
It's short and easy, yet an evocative read. The characters feel real and their emotions are depicted beautifully.