Carrie Soto is back

 Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

I'd read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo from the same author some time back and had loved it! So when somebody recommended this one I was all on board.

Reid has written four books following the same pattern where there is a female protagonist who's highly successful in her career. In "Carrie Soto is back", Carrie is the best ever tennis player. After she retires, she's at the risk of losing her record to another player Nicki Chan. This is not acceptable to her and she decides to come back from her retirement to take back her record. In a nutshell that's the outline of the book. Her father is her coach who she had removed from that position before she had retired, in her quest to win. Her goal in life was always to win and couldn't accept a loss. That was what propelled her, motivated her. For her return though, she wanted her father to be her coach once again. Further to add some romanic angle, one of the men's tennis player who she used to date back in the day, became the one whom she practiced with. 

After having read her other book, this was less entertaining. It's not bad but it's not great either! Initially it feels very energizing but slowly it becomes more of same old, same old.

Before we were yours

 

Author: Lisa Wingate

The story is engrossing, engaging and heart wrenching! What makes it more so is that it is loosely based on a true story/scandal.

The story alternates between past and present. The past is a family living happily on a boat on the Mississippi - father, mother and 5 kids. The eldest of them being Rill Foss. Then the fateful day arrives when their mother has to deliver a baby and due to complications she has to be taken to the hospital - away from home. While the mother and father are in the hospital, the kids are "taken away" by so called authorities and given to an orphanage run by Georgian Tann. As Rill keeps on trying of ways to go back to their home along with all her siblings, she can see her siblings being adopted one by one. Then one of her sisters is killed in the orphanage because she wouldn't listen. Rill herself faces sexual assault. Then she too is adopted by one of the families along with her sister.

The present day is a setting around a Senator's family. Avery is the daughter of the Senator who has cancer. She was a lawyer and came back home to be groomed into the position her father has if need arises. While doing one of the events for her father she runs into a woman who holds onto her hand and is not willing to leave her. The nurses had to take her away. She also took away her bracelet and claimed that was hers. This intrigues Avery much and she wants to find out the why behind it. She starts digging. The more she digs, the more questions she has. Along the way she meets people looking at whom makes her question her choices for her life.

Chole bhature

 

Bhature

This is my mom's recipe and it is truly the best! I've tried so many recipes but none has come out as good and as reliably as this! Everyone in my family, including the kids, simply love it!

Ingredients:

• 2.5 cups maida (all purpose flour)
• 0.5 cups sooji (semolina)
• pinch of sugar
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp eno
• Salt to taste
• Water as needed

Method:

Prepare the dough

1. Mix all the ingredients except water. 
2. Knead using water into a soft dough. 
3. Keep aside for 2-4 hours.

Make the bhaturas

1. Heat oil in a deep pan (kadai) at medium high heat.
2. Make small balls of the dough.
3. Roll each ball into circles (roughly 1/4 inch thick).
4. Fry each circle into a bhatura.
5. Note: the oil should be hot enough that when you put the circle into the oil it should puff up in a few seconds.

Chole

We tried Amritsari Chole and have been in love with them since! I use the recipe from here with some tweaks. These tweaks are to save time and to reduce the spiciness for the kids.

Ingredients

• 2 cups Chickpeas (soaked in water overnight)
• Whole spices:
• 2 tea bags
• 3-4 bay leaves
• 3 inch cinnamon stick
• 3-4 cloves
• Ground spices (if you need exact quantities refer to the recipe, I use quantity per the spiciness I need)
• Chilli powder
• Turmeric powder
• Coriander powder
• Garam Masala
• Amchur
• Cumin powder
• Kala Namak
• Hing
• Kasuri Methi
• 1 Onion, pureed (I've used chopped when I don't have time to puree it)
• 1/2 can tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp garlic, minced or finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp ginger, finely chopped
• 4 tsp oil
• To add extra heat
• Sliced chillies
• Garam masala
• Chilli powder

Method

1. Boil the chickpeas with 3-4 cups of water in a pressure cooker with the tea bags and the whole spices. When in a hurry, I skip the tea bags and the whole spices.
2. Heat oil in a pan and add onion. Saute for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add ginger and garlic. Continue sautéing till the raw smell of onion and garlic goes away.
4. Now add tomato paste. Saute for 2-3 minutes.
5. Add chickpeas.
1. To make true Amritsar style, drain and reserve the water from the chickpeas. However when in a hurry I just add all of it.
6. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes.
7. If you did not add water then add water now depending on the consistency you need.
8. To make it spicier:
1. Heat oil, add sliced chilies. Fry them.
2. Then add garam masala and red chili powder.
3. Pour this over the whole before serving.

The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo

 Author: Taylor Jenkin Reid

This is a very engrossing and entertaining book! It was also eye opening for me with respect to so many topics - Hollywood and how women were treated back in the day. 

As the title suggests, it is about Evelyn Hugo an award winning movie star. She was not always "Evelyn". Her beginnings were very humble when she aspired to get out of the "Hell's Kitchen" some day. She was so determined to do that, that she was willing to do whatever it took to get out of there. From a very young age, she was so beautiful - in face and body - that heads turned wherever she went. This she used to her advantage and one day landed in Hollywood. Soon she was acting in a movie and another and another. They didn't come easily - she had to appease people to get her roles. She was also very smart - she soon figured out how to get publicity, where are the right places to be in, who are the right people to be with so that she could keep climbing up the ladder. And that she did with all her smarts and beauty! She was like the Midas touch and people went to watch movies because she starred in them.

After she has aged and her career has come to an end (but not her stature), she decides she wants her biography written. For that she asks for Monique Grant from the magazine Vivant. Everybody, including Monique, is surprised on the choice of author. Monique is always curious why Evelyn chose her and often asks her directly. She is told that she will soon find out. As Evelyn unfolds her untold story, Monique learns some about life. How one needs to ask for they want and appear strong. She is actually able to use that for her benefit. And then the day comes where she finds out why she was chosen and some other saddening truths. 

As you read through the chapters, you're always wondering what'll happen next.

Maid

 The Maid

Author: Nita Prose

This book was quite a change from the genre I'd been reading and for good I must say. It's very interesting and will keep you engaged throughout!

Molly is neurodivergent (while her actual condition is not called out, she's probably on the autism spectrum) and a maid at a fancy hotel. She'd always wanted to be a maid and it was her dream come true when she got a job at her current hotel. Her colleagues either didn't like her much or made fun of her due to her neurodivergence. She was very good at her work - hardworking, honest and thorough. As a result, her boss liked her and understood her. He would give her pieces of wisdom. One day she went to clean the room of one of her regular clients, the wealthy Charles Black. Only to find him dead on his bed. She was the key witness in the case, she was more than a cleaner to Mr. Black's wife and her not-so-normal behavior/conversation with the police, make her an easy suspect. Plus her attraction towards one of the hotel employees who is involved in some drug handling makes the matters worse and takes her deeper into the pit than she would like. It is hard for her to manage all that is happening and is very troubling. She is arrested by the police. The hotel doorman had always been a friend to her and had warned her where she was going wrong. Now that she was in deep trouble, he is the only one to help her. She finds out while she might have lost her grandmother, her only family and friend, she has found a new set of friends who are like family.

People we meet on vacation

 Author: Emily Henry

After Book Lovers, my assessment of Emily Henry just kept going down hill. If Beach Read  was passable, then this book was not even worth picking up. 

It started well, with the main characters Poppy and Alex on a vacation. From long since, they had decided to take a summer vacation to new places together. Then Poppy got a job at one of the travel magazines and that just made it easier to do this every year. They were like best friends, loved spending together and had known each other a long time. On one of their vacations, a rift happened between the two and they did not talk for 2 years. Then suddenly one day, Poppy decided to text Alex and I felt like almost instantly things were back to normal. They decided to go on a vacation together again. There they did what they had done before, what had caused the rift; and once again it caused problems to them.

It totally beats me how can 2 people not talk to each other, intentionally, for 2 years and then suddenly be talking again and going on a vacation. What I did like about the book was how it was written - past and present interleaved. If you're expecting a new plot line here, you will be disappointed. 

With this book, I put a stop to reading any more by this author (are there more?).

Lessons in Chemistry

 

Author: Bonnie Garmus

Absolutely loved reading this book! First off, it has humor which just wins me over every single time. Secondly, it is about a woman in science back in the day. Lastly, it is about a woman who survived a man's world. Yes some parts are fantasy like and I was willing to ride along since it was so much to read!

Elizabeth is a chemist even though it's very hard to be one in world that she's living in. She was never able to get her degree even though she completed all her work because she complained about the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her advisor. Yes that's the kind of world she was living in. She did manage to get a job at a research institute and needless to say even though people around her know how capable and knowledgeable she is, nobody is willing to give her that respect because they know they don' need to. In that time, women were only secretaries, not scientists. Except one well respected scientist Calvin. And guess what they fall in love. Theirs is as perfect a relationship as possible, built on mutual respect. When something is too good to be true, I turns out it is. Calvin dies in an accident and Elizabeth is left alone and pregnant. She's sacked from her workplace so she decides to build lab inside her home. She guts out the kitchen and builds a lab which serves as her kitchen and a lab. She starts working there and also provides consulting to her employees back at the research institute. They in turn steal her work. Tired and exhausted from this world, when she's offered a job as the host of a cooking show that will pay well she decides to take that up even though she doesn't want to. In all this, she finds a friend in her neighbor who also helps take care of her daughter when needed.  She is also teaching her dog English because there's no text that says that dogs can' learn a language! And her daughter is a prodigy who knows the periodic table and understands religion at the age of 5! All these aspects add to the fun part of the story. Read on to find out what happens to Elizabeth.

As I was writing this review, I remembered there were quite a few parts of the story that seemed out of this world and then you would come across the grim realities of the world. I enjoyed that especially because they were adding to the positive side of the story. 

Beach Read

 Author: Emily Henry

Yes this book is by the same author as "Book Lovers". Since I enjoyed reading Book Lovers so much I thought why not read the others as well.

It's an ok, run-of-the-mill book. It was getting almost close to the category of books I-regret-spending-my-time-reading-it. More so because I had the previous book. This seemed a re-hash of it. Take the same template, change the surroundings and change the characters a little bit. Something that I think now, you can ask chatgpt to do.

How do you react when the heroine tells the hero "Don't fall in love with me"?? OH-My-GOODNESS what was the author even thinking when writing that. The cheesiest dialogue ever! Or the heroine feels that the hero has always avoided her while the hero says he was so obsessed with her that he was always around her? Are we talking about adults or 6 year olds who do not know how to read feelings! While I do agree that when reading a romance novel you do need to have your intellectual brain take a back seat but there's a limit to that I think.

As for the story, it actually starts off well and gives you hope. January just moved into a beach house left to her by her father. She's in agony because her perfect world just go shattered. She had a breakup, her father died and that was not the worst - it was then that she found out he was cheating on her mom and her mom had known for a long time. After moving into the beach house she finds out that her next door neighbor is Augustus. They used to be in college together and she always got the feeling he didn't approve of her work. Thought too highly of his own. He is a well known author of literary fiction and she of ramose novels. Given that they are neighbors, they're bound to interact and bump into each other. One things leads to another and they enter a contract whereby she would write a book on literary fiction and he would write a romance novel. To familiarize the other of their own domain, they decide to take the other on field trips. We all know how the rest will follow.

Book Lovers

 

Author: Emily Henry

I was looking was what book to read next on goodreads.com. Then I saw that Book Lovers was rated the best in romantic fiction so decided to check it out. I must say I loved loved loved reading the book! It starts off with humor, which makes me love the book even before I'm halfway through it. 

Nora is a book author and a city girl. She believes she's not the kind of heroine that a hero meets in a small town and falls in love because of the small town vibes. She's ambitious, loves her work, loves being in the city - everything a small town girl would not want. When her sister Libby insists that they take some time off and spend time together in a small town for the summer, she's quite stressed. She's not sure that it's a great idea. However she still agrees because she's never said no to her sister.

She is still getting used to the small town ways of Sunshine Falls but the thorn in the rose is Charlie. She met him once in New York and concluded that he was too much into himself and his work. It irked her that she kept running into him in this small place. The more she ran into him, the more she learnt about him. The story keeps you engaged at all times!

It ends with us

 

Author: Colleen Hoover

"It ends with us" is on the bestseller list and is hugely popular! After reading it, I must say deservingly so.

It starts with Lily's childhood. Lily lives with her parents in a small town. Her mother is physically abused by her father and that causes her much distress. She is unable to understand why her mother does no leave her father. One day she finds out that there's a homeless boy, Atlas, living in the vacant house behind theirs. She feels sorry for him and starts helping him with food, clothing, etc. They soon develop a bond which starts as a friendship and grows into something much deeper. Atlas, saves Lily from potentially murdering her father one day. Then the day comes when he needs to leave. He has an uncle in Boston who he can live with. 

When Lily grows up she decides to move out from the small town, go away from her father. She moves to Boston. There she has a chance meeting with a guy when she's sitting on the roof of a building, a few days after her father died, which changes her course of action in life. She decides to follow her dreams. She decides to have her own business. Her business flourishes, she meets a new friend and then again runs into that same guy Ryle. They fall in love, get married and live happily till they don't. She finds out that she has landed into an abusive relationship! And now she see the story play out from the perspective of her mother. 

What made the story more meaningful to me was that story is inspired from he author's own life.

Loved reading the book! Somewhere in the middle, it started seeming a little frivolous delving too much into physical attraction and relationship, but it is later that you realize why there was so much emphasis on it.