Who are you?

I'm not talking about who you are in front of people. I'm talking about who you are when you are alone. When you don't need to keep your mask on. When you don't need to create a new scenario for every other person. What makes you you and me, me?

The Vanishing Half as a book explores race, class, freedom, family, and identity. Out of all, identity stuck with me. As a person who is still struggling to find my identity, it hits home. 



From the very first chapter, we can see the character's inner turmoil of a conflicted sense of identity. Who I am and who is this illusion I have created for other people? Should I be me or should I let my illusion take over? Am I white enough to be white or not? Am I man enough, as I have born with the body of a woman?

Twins, Desiree and Stella lead opposite but unique life. So are their daughters. A brat and an alienated child. All are different yet they are the same. All are unique yet there is this illusion of their personalities for the others.

This book is like a good geometry or calculus problem. Complex, unique, and the satisfaction you get after solving/reading is the same. And it will leave you yearning for more. When I finished reading the last page, I kept on swiping because I couldn't believe that this book came to an end. It made me think about how well I know people around me as well as myself.

Neuroscience is a slippery, tricky concept. You will read topics after topics only to find that you haven't read enough. Neuroscience is the key to the hidden treasure that is our brain. It provides us answer to the mechanics of the various behaviours of human beings through the biological constructs of the brain. Gifty in the Transcendent Kingdom is a neuroscience student who is researching to identify and alter the neural mechanisms of pleasure-seeking. While doing so she's asking two important questions. 'Could it get a brother to set down a needle? Could it get a mother out of bed?'



Gifty is the daughter of Ghanian immigrants who grew up in Alabama. She is brought up to be religious and has followed the Bible as far as she knew. But when she finds her congregation is stereotyping her family because of her brother's drug addiction, she starts questioning everything she knows. She questions if there is a God and if he's real, why didn't he save her brother. She wonders why God didn't save her mother from depression which flares from time to time. When she couldn't find the answers through religion, she turns to science.



Gifty is often in conflict with her two chosen paths. She practised Christianity with such fervour that her beliefs are shaken when her brother dies of an overdose. She does things that aren't in line with her Christian beliefs and then she feels bad for doing it. She wallows in guilt when succumbed to her bodily pleasures. She wanted to be good. Anything that isn't good or blazing brilliance is not the standard of Gifty. She spent her whole life under the shadow of her brother. Gifty is a person without a context in her home. She observes that her brother has always been the context and without him, every matter-of-fact thing became cruel.



Her brother has been an important person in their tiny family. He was the axis that made their world revolves. But when he dies, the anguish felt by both Gifty and her mother was unbearable to read. They mourned and grieved in their way. Gifty's mother fell into a bout of depression and self-harm which made her confused and callous in some way. Her mother first losing her husband to shame and racism, then her son to the drugs slept her days away while Gifty took care of things at home. Later when there were only two of them, her mother would be cruel to Gifty which she accepted because to a child, not having a mother is worse than having a cruel mother.

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Both science and religion provides solace in different ways. Gifty writes these little 'Dear God' letters in her journal. When she feels that God is not listening to her, she turns towards science. Her experiments with eggshells open her way into science and with the mice, she tries to understand the answers to which she didn't know the question. She feels as if both science and God has failed to make things clear, to make meaning.

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Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply melancholic work. Gifty with her blazing brilliance and her sharp observations makes a long-lasting impression. Gifty with her guilt, anguish, shame and intelligence takes us to the Transcendent Kingdom. 

I am just overwhelmed. I never guessed that this book will be poignant and melancholic with the first few chapters. I expected a bit of drama, but I got more than what I signed up for.

A Married Woman is unapologetically sensual and political. I thought it is about a woman exploring her sexuality but it also explores what is to be a woman of "modern India". Set in the backdrops of Babar Masjid Demolition, it also talks about the hypocrisy of Indians and the Indian Household. Kapur's writing is unapologetically desi and I totally enjoyed it. So much love, loss, hope, helplessness, and more love.

Mood: dramatic, melancholic and poignant

One day Giovanna hears her father saying that she is getting the face of Vittoria. The hate in his voice makes her recoil and starts a resolute journey of meeting her aunt. Her aunt who is crass and rough makes her see things closely and clearly. This leads to a melodrama consisting of betrayals, affairs and breaks up of a family. Throw this with Giovanna's confusing adolescence, the desire to explore her sexuality and her crush for a man who is 10 years her elder (also a fiancé of another woman) you get the book The Lying Life of Adults. 



This is my first Ferrante and needless to say I am perplexed. I didn't expect the book to be fervent in its portrayal of adolescence and the bizarre web of desire and emotions. But here we are! After finishing this book, I just lay there lamenting about the confusing years of my adolescence. In case you want to know, I don't want to remember that ever.



Prepubescent and pubescent ages are confusing. You don't know what's happening to your body and mind. You want to explore it but ashamed of it. You want to be loved but it's usually not in the way you want to be. This exactly happens with Giovanna who grew up as an obedient girl of her well-educated parents. But the moment she hears the hate in her father's voice changes the crux of her life. She starts an obstinate journey to find her aunt to see if her father's words have any weight to them.  Once she meets her aunt, she finds her mesmerizing. And as time goes, she discovers that every adult lies for their convenience including her aunt.



Her father lied about loving her mother. Her mother lied about not seeing anyone. Her aunt lied about the bracelet her mother received as a gift. And so it goes on. Seeing the pattern of lying everywhere, Giovanna also starts to lie. She learns to manipulate people. There is a point where she feels that to lose innocence, one has to lie. It is those lies that push a person into adulthood.



After her father leaves their home for another woman, she becomes more reticent. She judges her mom pining after her dad. She hates her for wasting away her life for an undeserving man. But she also understands the love behind the gesture. As her body grows, Giovanna becomes more insecure. She stands in front of the mirror and scrutinize her face and thinks of her features in a new way. She looks at her ever-growing chest and thinks, that is enough to manipulate a man to do anything she wants.

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She feels a lot of things at once. Love, lust, desire, betrayal, hurt, fear of the unknown. She sees boys and men acting oddly because of her growing body and that makes her vulnerable.  On one of her visits to her aunt, she meets a Pastor in training (also a professor like her dad) Roberto and instantly attracted by him. She reads up everything she can so that she can argue with him the next time they meet. She also befriends Giuliana, his fiancee, to get close to Roberto. Even with all the efforts, she finds that is difficult to find a person who loves you for you. 

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And that is the point, isn't it? There are very less people who will love you in all your imperfection and perfection. And the pressure we put on teenage girls is immense. They are poked and prodded till they explode. And when they explode, we go, "wow! That's too bitchy for your age." It is no wonder that they stop expecting love and grow into an insecure individual. Giovanna perfectly gets that and leaves her home with her friend, to grow into an adult-like no one has. The Lying Life of Adults is not about how Adults lie their way into life. It is about how we grow into an adult by Lying.

I am fascinated by death. The charm and allure of death are too tempting to not ignore. I wanted to know what happens after a person dies. Of course, I know what happens to the body. But my curiosity was on the journey that the soul makes after death. Does the soul cease to exist as the body expires? Or does it lodges into another life to start anew? What happens? When nobody gave me answers, I turned towards the literature. I have read quite a few books (fiction and nonfiction) to quench the curiosity but none touched the par of excellence like Low.





Low is about drugs, depression, death, guilt, and finding hope. We follow Dominic Ullis, in his drug-induced journey of grief following the death of his wife Aki (who is enamoured with death from a tender age) on a weekend in Mumbai. On his way, Dominic meets quite a lot of people. But he is indifferent to them. He shoots up drug after drug just to cope with the grief. In one of his drug-induced hallucinations, he meets his wife who regrets committing suicide at all, stating that it isn't what she expected. Oh, the irony!





I can sense the dark, murky thing ready to pounce in me. When the gloom starts to appear, I panic. I want to hurt people with my words. Then I wallow in the guilt for wanting to hurt my loved ones. After a good amount of wallowing comes the phase of self-hate. I hate myself for being ungrateful for all the things I have been given. This phase of Self-hate is finally followed by the thoughts of death. I want to feel how it feels when you take your final breath. I want to know what happens when you close your eyes for the last time knowing I won't open it again. I want to know what my loved ones will feel when I am not here. And on and on it goes.





But these days, I am at peace with this dark, murky thing. Like Thayil's Aki who calls her depression as Low and senses the arrival of it, I learned to recognize the signs of being consumed by the dark. In the futile attempt to break this cycle, I try to hold on to whatever little things I can find. Books, movies, music, the stupid crow, rain, and memes. There's a saying Tamil that roughly translates as 'Known ghost is better than the unknown God.' Sometimes my fascination with death does resemble this quote. I have lived with whatever horrors life threw at me. But the unknown after death, however alluring it may be, scares me. So, I find comfort in the things that I can afford and I am forever grateful for them. I am not a victim. I have never been. But this dark phase makes me feel like one and I hate it. I hate that I have the privilege to feel like a victim when I am not.





I read Low when I was at the lowest point of my existence. I connected with his book on a deeper level and the feelings revolved around it. I can't criticize Dominic or Aki for how they deal with their grief and depression. Is there even a right way to grieve? You grieve and figure out life as you go. Looking for things that provide you with even a sliver of hope. I finished this book with the hope, breaking that dark phase and I am forever grateful for it.

Dead Girls by Selva Almada



While coming back home at 10 in the night after my college, I used to have my lab coat filled with essentials. Essentials as in a tiny bottle of sanitiser, my mobile and my knee hammer with its end sharpened. At even a minute movement, I clutch my knee hammer in a vice grip, ready to stab. Always looking over my shoulder, always talking to someone while I walk home on a deserted road. Training the street dogs to walk with me and feeding packets of biscuits as a reward. We all have been there. I am sorry, every woman has been there. On the surface smiling and showing our pearly whites, while checking for easy exits, probable things to use as weapons and always sketching an escape plan. One part of the mind is constantly in a struggle with another part.



And yet, women are killed. Raped, tortured, mutilated, used and thrown away like a tissue, in their own homes, by their trusted ones, by the unknown men/women, by the people who hate the women and especially the privileged brats who knew that they can get away with doing anything under the sun. And let us not forget how one's husband or boyfriend or father or brother or uncle "loves" the women in their house. But yes, women are lucky to be alive in this world, as if we are handed out the opportunity to live and we have to be thankful for it. What a privilege it is to be a woman who hasn't faced violence!



Dead Girls by Selva Almada talks about 3 families that happened in her teens that went unpunished. Almada researched for 3 years, read several reports, newspaper articles, interviews and conducted interviews with the surviving family members to write this journalistic fiction in just 3 months. One can spot the urgency with which this book has been written. These 3 women, Sarita Mundín—a 20-year-old who worked several jobs before turning to sex work, María Luisa Quevedo—a 15-year-old who had just started work as a maid and Andrea Danne—a student stabbed in her bed, have never seen their 21st birthday while I sit here and furiously typing away in my mobile feels like an utter privilege.



Almada writes with surprising tenderness about these women and their surviving families that just want me to shout on a few so-called journalists we have in India. The respect she has for the women and their families is evident is something that many journalists have to learn. Annie McDermott has mentioned in an interview that she'll be happy if this book makes people angry rather sad. One can feel the anger bubbling like a storm in the writing. McDermott has done a wonderful job in translating this anger from Spanish to English. 



An interesting thing I found is, swap Argentina for India or any country for that matter, we still have similar statistics staring at your face. With violence against women, increasing particularly in this lockdown period, Dead Girls is a book everybody should read. With straight and sharp prose, Dead Girls is a book that makes you angry by showing ugly truth, wriggling around in a full view (in the words of the translator) and makes reading this book an unforgettable experience. 

We all know what doesn't kill you will make you strong. But have we ever paused to think about at what costs? My mind runs a mile away every time I think about this. In order to be strong, what should I give up? To develop thick skin, how many cuts do I need to get? Think about the amount of coping mechanisms that a person has to undergo to process trauma. This is one of the focal points in Milk Fed.



Rachel is in a toxic relationship with her mother. Her mother bullies Rachel for her weight, her appearance and anything under the sun. This sends Rachel into the black hole that is a coping mechanism. She follows a military regime of exercise, she counts her calories every day and she always has a nicotine gum or two at ready. And what her therapist says about this? She suggests Rachel do undergo a 90-days detox plan for healing. But the twist is this detox plan involves her not talking to her mother for the said days. Whatever happens within these 90 days makes the premise of the book.



The interesting part of this book is the exploration of desire. Desire to pleasure and to be pleasured. Desire to love. Desire to eat. Desire to feel the love of a mother who refused to provide it to her as a child. Desire to be accepted. She desires to pleasure and love Miriam, an obese woman who works at her favourite yoghurt shop. What starts as a normal crush soon develops into obsessive and unhealthy. She desires to be mothered by Ana, her older but beautiful coworker. But most of all, she desired to be accepted by her mother for what she is for. While these desires are normal, she is looking at the wrong sources to have them fulfilled.



When Rachel meets Miriam, she goes on an eating spree. Binge eating food and starving on later days to compensate for it. At one point, she continuously checks her weight on 3 different weighing machine that didn't show her a proper value. As Rachel starts feeding herself, she starts to heal. 



I didn't know much about Judaism and its practices. But Broder gives a detailed insight into a traditional Jewish family when Miriam invites Rachel over to her home for Shabbat. I particularly love how Broder connected her spiritual dreams with the guts. When Rachel feeds her body, she feeds her soul. And just like that, what made her feel powerless, made her powerful. In her newfound confidence, she does impulsive things that make her lose her job. But also enabled to spread her wings to another venture.



Milk Fed is highly sensual, raunchy and deliciously dirty. The intensity of this book made me recoil into my tight inner-shell to stop the overwhelming emotions. It left me contemplating about myself as a person and the things I did, do and will do for a little love. Whether I am capable of loving myself?  When shit hits the sky, can I be there for me? If I can mother myself when my mother can't do it for me? Do I love myself to be my own daughter?

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.

-Amy Bloom.

My concept of beauty lies in the imperfections. What is beauty to you? Is it about the skin? Is it about a person's character? Or is it about their body? Or is it about perfections and imperfections? Smith explores this concept of beauty with her keen observations in On Beauty.

On Beauty is a story that spans between two rival families. Each family members have their own opinions and beliefs that are in an entirely different league. Another thing that I found interesting in this book is the concept of identity. The characters try to confine themselves into one identity and when that identity doesn't represent who they are, they try to change it. Then they are worried that their identity might be mistaken for something they are not. They are in a constant state of dilemma that can be identified with the modern space.

Throughout the book, this contrast appears again and again. A distinction between nationality, race, beliefs, percipience and economical backgrounds set the tone of the story. Smith uses dry humour to render every little and big things. She doesn't shy away from showing the people for what they are. The hypocrisy, crisis of faith, exploration of relationships everything has a representation. She represents anyone and everyone.

With that being said, I found the characters in this book irritable, pompous, and entitled. They were all occupied by their selfishness and hypocrisy to notice that are hurting others. One character that stood out from this description is Kiki Belsey. Her character shone throughout the book. While the others wallow in their beauty or lack of it, Kiki embraces the change with all her heart. Her grace and personality that slip through the sliver of pages are what makes one of the vital points of the story.

The book on its own read like a sitcom. You have two rival families who are shown miles apart in literally everything. And characters that are beautiful, ugly, radical, conservative, witty, dry, ambitious and talented. And the sharp contrast between physical beauty and beauty beyond it. The struggle to find one's identity beyond one skin colour in a predominantly white background, all makes On Beauty an exciting satire.

At the first look, My Year of Rest and Relaxation may sound shallow. I mean this is a story about a woman who self medicate herself into a coma with the help of a quack doctor. She is beautiful, rich, and privileged. She has everything she needs in her life and this coma stint is just a pure act of privilege squandering, isn't it? How many of us can take a year-long hiatus from our life without any consequences? I had all these thoughts running when I first read the blurb. And I had to read it to find whether it is as shallow as the blurb.



Let me tell you one thing. This book is anything but shallow. Now we may have a protagonist (MC hereafter) who seem to have her life in order. But her life is chaos. She lost both her parents within a short period. Parents who didn't want her in the first place and made it known for her too. They are detached from our MC to the point that she couldn't feel any emotions toward them. At one point she reads a letter from her dead mother just to feel how rejected it made her feel. We all have some dysfunctionality in our lives. But this is like a slap to the face.



Our MC in general has an abnormal and unhealthy relationship with almost everyone in her life. Her therapist is a quack who doesn't know to diagnose a patient. Her on and off lover Trevor is there because he is better than Hoodie wearing hippies. And she calls Reva her best friend because she is pathetic and Reva's obsession will pull her out of whatever black hole MC burrowed into. Reading all this you don't particularly like our MC and may start to think that she is the problem. You know what? She knows that she is the problem and she is okay with it. She doesn't want you to like her or put her on a pedestal. And that's something refreshing to read.



When you take a closer look and read between the lines, this is not just a story about the year-long hibernation of a woman. It is also about how disgusting people can be when they are at their worst. That friend who says that you're their best friend will hold a whole pit of jealousy and show it at the worst time possible. 



In the end, our obsession with vanity, materialism and consumerism doesn't matter unless we are not ready to work on ourselves.

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I enjoyed reading this book with all its scoffing commentary and spent most of the time in a trance. Though this is not an all-time favourite of mine, I will definitely not miss a book by Moshfegh.

My mother love to invade my boundaries. She wants access to my thoughts, my actions and my reactions. There were zero concepts of privacy among us. When I asked her not to step over my boundaries, she replied, "You came to this earth because of me. Don't act as if you don't need me now."



I used to loathe when we have our arguments. It is volatile, explosive and scorching. Like the sting of a Medusa, the effects last longer. And just when the sting throbs less, there will be another sting that will hurt more than the previous one. My mother loved to remind me that I am indebted to her for life. In a way I am, but who wants to be reminded about being indebted?



So, I lash out, rebel in any way I could. I don't want to pay my debt and she doesn't want to let me go without me paying the credit. Everything we do is a transaction of the sort. If you deposit comfort, you can get it with the interest. If you deposit hatred, you get it with interest too. This transaction never ends. And when we started the transaction of hatred, there is no turning back. My mother and I are toxic to each other. We are toxic to the point that we no longer on speaking terms.



Does this make me relieved? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. I am still a child trapped in an adults body. I still want my mother to love me and comfort me. Even now I want to taste her Sambar and Pulao when I am hungry. But I don't know whether she wants me as her daughter. This thought makes my mind wander like a jellyfish.



Hot Milk is deeply personal to me. I cannot bring myself to write a review of this book. It's like writing about me with a different name. This book made me remember and relive all the good and terrible times with my mother. The result of reading this book is like gulping a glass of hot milk. It nearly charred me. I might not revisit this book anytime soon despite the melodic writing. But this book will always have a piece of me that I try to hide.