Reading on a Rainy Day

   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...

Published : 2015   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : A different Earth One line summary : When the world is ending, what is more important - survival or revenge? If you are Essun, your answer may be revenge, but in her search for it, she has to figure out how to survive as well. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind. Thoughts : I must have had this book on my Kindle ever since it was released. There was a lot of hype then and although I always enjoy epic fantasy series, I don’t read them often enough due to having to wait for the next book (in the case of ongoing series) or not being sure if the series is for me (even though I know I don't need to read the rest of the series, it still feels like a commitment). This quarter, one of my online book clubs is reading N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy . I decided it was finally time to read the books.  First of all, trigger warnings - there is a lot ...

Published : 1929   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : US One line summary : Two old friends/acquaintances reconnect years later, but there's a lot at stake this time especially with one friend passing as white and several relationships forming or dying. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   The trouble with Clare was, not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well. Thoughts : Irene Redfield and Clare Bellew are two light-skinned Black women living diametrically opposite lives with their families. On the one hand, Irene is living comfortably in the neighborhood of Harlem as a black woman, while Clare is passing as white and living with a white husband, who (ironically) detests black people. When their paths cross one day, there is a strange magnetic pull that both brings them together and keeps them apart. Passing is one of those books where much doesn't seem to happen, and yet much does ha...

           Published : 2020   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : US One line summary : Piranesi is happily living his days, collaborating with The Other, journaling his activities, until a tear appears in his life fabric, a stranger starts popping up in his house to communicate with him. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not. Thoughts : Piranesi spends his days cataloguing his activities and taking care of the House where he stays. This is no ordinary house - it has endless corridors, walls, halls, and statues. The floors get flooded and birds fly into the halls. To Piranesi, this is all normal though. According to him, there is only one other person who stays in the house/world. He calls this person The Other.  His sense of normalcy however, is shattered one day when he sees evidence of another person in their world. The Ot...

          Published : 2015   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : US One line review : When Melissa, a transgender girl, shares her desire to be Charlotte in the upcoming school play, she realizes that it's not just the school teacher but the whole world that has a hard time seeing her as the girl she is. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   George stopped. It was such a short, little question, but she couldn't make her mouth form the sounds. "Mom, what if I'm a girl?" Thoughts : Melissa is a transgender girl who simply wants the people around her to stop seeing her as a boy. But this is easier said than done, considering she has been working up the courage to let her mom know about it but has not been able to talk about it. When her school starts auditions for the play Charlotte's Web, Melissa wants to be Charlotte. But the school policies are clear - only those assigned girls at birth can audition for Charlotte's role.  Before I go ...

      Published on : 2015   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : Japan One line review : In a magical underground cafe, patrons visit to have coffee or a snack, to meet friends, or occasionally to travel back in time to visit someone from the past. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   You can’t meet people who haven’t visited this café. The present cannot change. There is only one seat that takes you to the past, and you cannot move from it. Then, there is the time limit. Thoughts : For whatever reason, Before the Coffee Gets Cold is everywhere now. And for good reason. It has a splendid premise, it is a short and fast read, and every story (yes, this is a four-story collection with the same characters) dives right in that you are not waiting too long to unravel the mystery here.  The cafe, Funiculi Funicula, has been featured in several news stories already so it isn't exactly a well-kept secret. Patrons are not necessarily rushing into the doo...

       Published in : 2021   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : US, Russia, Space One line review : One not-really-an-astronaut wakes up in Space with the weight of Earth's entire humanity on him and with a single mission to save Earth, except he doesn't really know his name or what the mission is, or even where he is.  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆    "I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe." "You poked it with a stick?" "No!" I said. "Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick."  Thoughts : Ryland Grace wakes up in an unfamiliar bed with a robot caring for him, not remembering his name, not remembering how he got here, not even remembering what 'here' is. Over the next several days, weeks, and months, his memory gradually comes back to him, but for now, he very soon he realizes he is in Space approaching the sun. But on closer look at the sun (and a lot of math calculations), he r...

      Published in : 2021   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : US, Ukraine, Russia One line review : As Larissa shares her story of suffering, loss, and survival during her family's escape from the Nazis, her granddaughter Natasha wonders how she can revive her stagnant career.  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   The other day, I'd overheard Papa telling Mama that many of the younger men were practically begging to be sent to the front. At least at the front they would be given three substantial meals a day and would hardly be expected to work for twelve hours straight. And if they died, they would do so with honor in their hearts and food in their bellies. Thoughts : New mother Natasha has lately been extremely tired. Taking care of a newborn can do that to you. Sometimes she looks at her life and wonders if her actress-life is in the past or if she can regain some of that glory. None of her auditions are panning out to good offers. To help ...

      Published on : 2017 & 2018   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : Space One line review : When a planetary mission goes wrong, it is up to an android to come up with a way to rescue its clients, even it rescue appears very difficult. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   I am not a combat murderbot, I’m Security. I keep things from attacking the clients and try to gently discourage the clients from attacking each other. Thoughts : I had been hearing a lot of good things about the Murderbot series by Martha Wells, and when I tried to look up these books in my library website, the waiting lists were at least one month long, so by the time I had a copy available to read, my expectations were sky-high. Currently, the Murderbot series contains 5 novels (with the sixth coming later this month) and 2 novellas. Of these, the fifth book, Network Effect starts a new storyline while the first four novels are part of the same story arc. As of right no...

     Published on : 2021   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : Canada One line review : When Kiran runs away from home to another country, to escape her rapist, she doesn't realize how long it is going to take her to feel like herself again.  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   “Passports and boarding passes, please,” drawls the blond, goateed man, towering a foot above us both. I pass him both my and Mom’s documents and attempt the smile that every person of color has mastered. The one that reads, I’m thoroughly nonthreatening. Please don’t pull me aside and racially profile me. Thoughts : I can't remember how I found this book or why I chose to read it. It was available on my library's Overdrive catalog and I'm glad I made the time to read it. If I Tell You the Truth tells the story of Kiran's arrival in Canada as a pregnant graduate student, though in reality, she was also running away from her rapist back home in India. When she makes...

    Published on : 2018 (translation)   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Japan One line review : Keiko would rather behave exactly as others expect her to so she doesn't disappoint "society", and so she works at the same convenience store without changing anything about her life, but very soon the same society expects her to "upgrade" (change career and find a husband), except there is no manual on how to do these.  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why. I found that arrogant and infuriating, not to mention a pain in the neck. Sometimes I even wanted to hit them with a shovel to shut them up, like I did that time in elementary school. But I recalled how upset my sister had been when I’d casually mentioned this to her before and kept my mouth shut. Thoughts : When I started reading Convenience Store Woman , I had no idea what to e...

   Published on : April 6, 2021   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : US, India One line review : When a gold heist once results in unspeakable tragedy, what will Neil and Anita do 10 years later when gripped with a similar desire?  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   "How old are you?" I suddenly asked, then flushed. There was something mesmerizing about the way Ramesh Uncle spoke of history, as though he'd witnessed it firsthand. "I am one of those trees with so many age rings round its middle that you cannot really tell anymore." Thoughts : Neil Narayan does not have the same drive or ambition that his peers have towards academics or even extra-curricular activities. His older sister is headed to Duke and his classmates toward other successful destinies, but Neil just mostly wants to be with his neighbor, Anita Dayal, for whom he has complicated feelings - lust, romance, or is it just curiosity? Anita is extremely successful but also has a secret...

I first heard about Jerry Craft's  New Kid  and  Class Act  over on Helen's blog . Both books have always had a long waiting list at my library and then after a few 'Deliver Later' attempts, it was some time before I finally got to reading New Kid .  In New Kid , Jordan Banks would like to go to an art school, but his parents have a different idea - they enroll him at a prestigious private school that had mostly white students and a social makeup that didn't match his current lifestyle or neighborhood. He isn't sure if he will ever fit in even after he meets the handful of black or brown students enrolled at the school. As the school year progresses, he learns how to deal with micro-aggressions and also respond when he is expected to teach the black perspective and experience to his white teachers or students. His friend, Drew Ellis, who is also black, struggles more than Jordan does, if it is even fair to compare experiences in racism and micro-aggressions. Cla...

  Published in : 2018   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : Pakistan One line review : When 12-year old Amal is forced to slave at a landlord's house as punishment for speaking out at the landlord, it feels like her dreams have come to an end, but true to her nature, she finds hope even in this new place and many ways to keep her dreams alive.  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   We don’t have to make headlines to help change the world for the better. Thoughts : As the eldest sibling in her family and also as a girl, Amal is always having to compromise. When her mother goes into labor and then later takes much longer to recover than Amal had hoped, it is Amal who stays home from school so that her little sisters' education does not suffer. Around this time, she learns that her parents are disappointed that the newest addition to their family is also a girl and not the boy child they have been praying for. All the little things build up, which is why, w...

Published in : 2018   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : Canada One line review : When the world comes crashing, some people shutdown while others elevate their community. Which one will you be? ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   Yes, apocalypse. We've had that over and over. But we always survived. We're still here. And we'll still be here, even if the power and the radios don't come back on and we never see any white people again. Thoughts : Evan Whitesky returns home after a whole day of hunting to realize that his mobile phone had lost network sometime during the day. He doesn't think a lot about it then but over the next few days, his community loses electricity and their landline connection as well. To make matters worse, they are unable to contact anyone from the city to inquire when services can be restored. With the never-ending blizzard, it was not feasible for someone to simply drive to the nearest city and find out what's going on. Soon, they have to...

I've recently read a ton of graphic novels and memoirs - some I loved and others not so much but were still a thrill to read. Guts by Raina Telgemeier I am always on the lookout for Raina Telgemeier's comics, so when I found Guts available at my library's Overdrive catalog last year, I had to request it right away. Her comics are always delightful, designed for the middle-grade audience, and written very well. Guts is a continuation of her Smile nonfiction graphic memoir series (see Smile and Sisters ) and recounts a period in her childhood when she experienced IBS for the first time. When Raina wakes up one night with an upset tummy, she just assumes it's a stomach bug as her mom is also showing the same symptoms. But when it doesn't go away soon but is instead influenced by the daily highs and lows of being a middle grader - good friends, not so good ones, and then the bullies, she realizes there's something else going on. If you have not read the previous...

Published in : 1968   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : Earth, Moon, Space One line review : Monoliths can mean bad news, disappearing monoliths even more so; sometimes, they can have ulterior motives too and make you smarter. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be. Thoughts : Ever since I read 2001: A Space Odyssey , I have been seeing references of this book in everything - the monolith that suddenly showed up and just as suddenly disappeared in Utah. And then, that report of an interstellar object ( Oumuamua ) that visited our Solar System recently. Plus, the mystery in  2001: A Space Odyssey  is not even unusual if you have recently been watching a lot of Star Trek. For a glorious minute, I almost said 'eh, been there, seen that' before earth came crashing to me and reminded me that even Star Trek was fantasy. (That was a very glorious min...

Over the past couple of months, I've read a few books that I didn't get a chance to review yet. These were all enjoyable in different ways and are recommended reads. A Will to Kill by R. V. Raman I've been looking for an Indian mystery for a while now. So when I came across A Will to Kill in Netgalley set in one of my favorite places in India (also close to my home town), I just had to request it. In so many ways, this is a typical Agatha Christie type mystery - there's a death (in an isolated mansion, no less) and the investigator/detective tries to solve the mystery. Harith Athreya is visiting the owner of the mansion, Bhaskar Fernandez, where a small gathering has been planned for the owner's relatives and friends. Bhaskar has written two wills - and how he dies will determine which will goes into effect. That night, there is a murder and Athreya spends the next few days trying to find the culprit. I generally enjoy the Agatha Christie class of murder mysteries....