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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that people do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy I see in front of me. But if I saw her, I wouldn't recognize her. Beatrice is nervous. She has a test coming up soon. The test. The test that will determine her future. On a particular day each year, all sixteen-year olds have to take a test that will find the dominant quality they possess and thus find the faction that best suits them. A day after the test, they have to make their choice. If they choose a different faction from the one they were born in, they cannot return back or meet their parents. Beatrice's test doesn't go as expected, forcing her to keep a secret, and she ends up making a choice that surprises everyone. However, when she begins to hear hints of

The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu

"Your hair was set beautifully, but the style she's given you is not for you." My heart was pounding with rage. It had taken me an hour and a half to do that style and he dared to say that I'd got it wrong. The customer is always king. I'd done the style she asked for. Vimbai is the hairdresser at a well-known salon in Harare, where she has self-proclaimed herself to be the best one in town. She is definitely one of the best hairdressers - the owner of the salon prefers Vimbai handling the important customers. Even otherwise, the salon sees many customers who would rather have her dress their hair than anyone else. One day, when a man named Dumisani comes calling at the salon, in response to an ad calling for applicants, Vimbai's reign as the queen hairdresser is threatened. As simple as that summary sounds, The Hairdresser of Harare is anything but simple or trivial. Set against the backdrop of the politics within a salon, there are several elemen

The Sunday Salon: Summer Reading Plans (and scrapping the current quarter project)

I wasn't planning to do one of these, but since everyone else is posting their summer reading lists, I couldn't resist. Blame it on peer pressure. Couple of months back, I planned to spend the second quarter reading science fiction and dystopian titles. And while I did read a few books from that category ( Divergent , Battle Royale , Fahrenheit 451 , The Knife of Never Letting Go , currently reading Unwind ), I didn't quite get to as many as I had hoped to read. But mostly, none of the books I read so far have wowed me - they all fell far short of expectations. I will probably continue with more science fiction books (I still have Insurgent to read and maybe continue with the Chaos Walking series ), but they may not exactly be on top of my pile. For now, I'm looking for something else to focus on. I know that whenever I make a reading list, I never get to most of the books on that list. Reading lists, to me, are for ogling pleasure. I have no doubt, that histo

Intl Giveaway - Make It Stay (Joan Frank)

(Thanks for visiting! This giveaway is now closed.) Yesterday, I raved about Make it Stay and today, I'm thrilled to say that I have  ONE copy  of this book to give away, courtesy of the publisher and  TLC Book Tours . I strongly recommend this book to all readers of literary fiction. To enter, simply fill the form below. The usual stuff: You  don't  have to be a follower of my blog to enter the giveaway. You must be over 13 years of age. International giveaway - (which means you can be from anywhere on Planet Earth) The giveaway will stay open until I chose the winner on May 29, 2012 . Fill the form.

Make it Stay by Joan Frank

I remember Neil made a show of checking his watch that day; then, facing me as if I were a point-blank gun barrel, shouted his invitation to lunch. The whole staff turned to stare. He must've thought I couldn't hear with my earphones in. Poor fellow blushed so hard I thought his head might pop off. Neil and Rachel (aka Rae) met and got married when Rae was in her forties - much later than is considered the "normal" age for first marriages. Rae is a writer, an introvert who preferred to stay home in her PJs than meet people. Neil was more outgoing, loved cooking and hosted dinners often for their friends and acquaintances. Into this marriage, Neil brings the baggage of his long friendship with Mike, the owner of an aquarium business in downtown, and the complicated relationship between Mike and his wife, Tilda. At the moment however, something terrible had already happened, involving Mike and Tilda - something hinted at a lot, while Neil preps dinner for a gathe

Yet another Monday! (May 21, 2012)

Sheila  @  Book Journey  wants to know what we're reading. I'm only too happy to oblige! A month and a half since the last time I did this, I hate to admit that I have done very little reading in the meantime. A lot of things happened, and a lot of reading just didn't happen. One of those seasonal ruts, I could say. At the moment, I'm going through a few good books so that's always good. One of the books I'm reading right now is Joan Frank's Make it Stay . The author is new to me and the book is really short. (Short books are really deceptive - they usually take twice as long to read as a bigger book.) The events in the book are supposed to be set within the span of an evening - and a lot of surprising revelations involving 5 people are expected to be made. I find myself drawn a lot to books like these - by the time you are done, you feel like you've read a saga, but in fact, you've only sat through a day or night in the lives of the ch

The Sunday Salon: Some reading and some petting

It's been ages since I did the last Salon post and I feel pretty clueless around here for a change. I've been up since two hours ago and the hour hand is only just slowly making its way to the 8 o'clock mark. Dogs and their early morning urges! It's been two weeks since we got Rue , and it's been a lot of revelations, learnings, changes, fun, and anxiety since then. The first week was all lovey-dovey. We loved the dog, she loved us. It was all a big happy family. We were pretty relieved that Rue was turning out to be low maintenance. As with things like these, once the honeymoon ended, the nightmares started. One day I came home to see that she had pretty much upended the recycle bin and started chewing on bottles and cans and strewn the litter in the hall. The neatofreak in me had a terrible panic attack. That same evening she ran out of the house (to do her business) but she didn't return back when I called her. Anyways, the point is, we found she has sep

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caeser's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, "Remember, Caeser, thou art mortal." Most of us can't rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that many friends. The things you're looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Guy Montag is a fireman. Not a fireman that put out fires and rescued people from crumbling rubble, but a fireman who burnt books and even people who chose to be burnt with their books. That's what their system dictated. That's how things have been for as long as he could remember. He's never questioned the system or entertained any curiosity towards books and their contents. That is, until a sixteen-year old girl stops him one day and asks him a lot of questions that are beyond him. These qu

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil

When he took a drag his cheeks appeared to cave in. He had become very thin and it seemed to Lee that his father no longer resembled a human being. He was a pipe attached to a head with stick arms and legs. Or he was an inanimate object, a piece of knobbed wood, a walking stick or polished figurine.  Right from the moment Trish mentioned about Narcopolis via the TLC Book Tours , I was hooked. I loved how well the title covers the essence of the book - this truly is about the city of O: about Bombay whose underbelly bore witness to the reign of opium and heroin, and also about the drugs themselves as a metaphorical city. I also loved that this was set in India, but the writing hasn't been "Americanized" so much so that an Indian like me may find it hard to relate to. And on top of it, I was looking forward to reading about this subject matter - about the drug-obsessed sector of Bombay, that I had not yet had a chance to read or learn about, other than always heari

The Sunday Salon: The New Kid on the Block

Early last week, a new flyer had come up in the neighborhood. Lynchburg Humane Society was holding a pet fair in our community. The husband had been after me for quite some time to get a dog but I, being the crazy neat freak that I am, held back. But the flyer was too difficult to dismiss. Yesterday morning, we headed over to the clubhouse, met a few adorable four-legged friends and went home wishing to buy one but still terrified of taking that first step (we both have never had pets). After an hour of browsing online through the list of pets waiting for a home, we both just quickly piled into our car without thinking too much and headed to meet the three dogs that we shortlisted. They were all lab/retriever mixes, but after seeing one of them jump sky-high (and not really come to us when we went to meet her personally), we decided to go to a smaller dog. Enter Rue, a lovely adorable beautiful year-and-a-half old Jack Russell mix. We both fell in love with her right away and

I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

"We're playing Scrabble. It's a nightmare." "Scrabble?" He sounds surprised. "Scrabble's great." "Not when you're playing with a family of geniuses, it's not. They all put words like 'iridiums'. And I put 'pig'." Poppy Wyatt seems to have everything going in her favor - she is about to marry the ideal man - successful Magnus Tavish whose parents are even more successful university professors. But on the very day Magnus' parents are visiting, Poppy loses her engagement ring, which is also a family heirloom. On top of it, she also lost her phone and while she anxiously tries to ponder missing the one message saying her ring has been found, she finds another phone in the bin. Happy to find a functional discarded phone, she quickly tells everyone to text/call her at this number, only to get a call from someone named Sam Roxton asking for the phone back since it belongs to his company. Sophie Kinsel