Twenty years later

 Author: Charlie Donlea

The story opens up with the scene of 9/11. Victoria, who's meeting her lawyer in that building for a gruesome crime, is a victim of this disaster. 

It then transitions to Avery Mason. Avery has had tremendous success with her investigative series of true events on the TV. As she's trying to negotiate a multi-million dollar deal with her TV network, she's looking for another investigation opportunity which will help her capture her audience's attention and prove her worth. Along comes Emma, Victoria's sister, who wants Avery to prove her sister's innocence. On her last phone call with Emma, Victoria pleads her innocence to her sister. Researchers who have been digging through the remains of 9/11 find some new evidence. All this combined, makes this a compelling case to Avery. 

Little does she realize that there's more to it than meets the eye. Not to mention her very own past that some high profile people are interested in. 

An extremely gripping story with quite some twists and turns! You will love reading it!

Be Ready When Luck Happens: A memoir

 

I enjoyed reading this book! It is Ina Garten's story right from childhood to where she is today and it was very interesting. There was a lot to learn. It showed that she is where she is today not just because of her skills but more because of the immense hard work she's put into her career. It tells you that owning a business is not easy. That spending all your time and energy on your business and career comes at the cost of personal time and relationships. Probably all these things are widely known but reading a true story makes it more real. Oh and the other big thing that you learn is - great success doesn't come without taking big risks. She left her job at the White House to run a bakery! 

Recounting her trip to Europe with a budget of $5 per day is entertaining and inspiring. So are all her business ventures. Her love story is so sweet, truly amazing!

I was surprised that one could remember so many details.

All in all, I would recommend reading this book.

Born a crime: Trevor Noah

 

A memoir by Trevor Noah. While it is full of hardships that Trevor encountered as he was growing up, Trevor manages to convey it in a fashion that is entertaining and humorous. He grew up in South Africa and had a Swiss father and a South African mother. Due to their races, their relationship was considered a crime. Hence the title of the book.

Trevor was raised by his mother. His mother was a force to reckon with and for many things an inspiration to women around the world. Living in those times in a place like South Africa, as black woman, she was an independent soul. She worked and earned her own living. It was not easy but she did it. She married a guy who was not the right father for Trevor. This impacted Trevor a lot. At one point, he was asked to leave the house and live on his own. From his very childhood, he was always getting into trouble. Living on his own meant he was getting into way bigger troubles. One way or another he managed to come out of them.

I would highly recommend this book. It was very interesting, had humor, and helped learn about the hardships that people face around the world. One might think they had a hard childhood and then when you read something like this you understand what does a rough childhood really mean. It also inspiring to see that somebody like that could rise up the economic ladder and be where they are today.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Author: David Grann

I had always seen this book on the Top N list but somehow the title and the cover of the book didn't entice me enough to get started on it. Then recently, I was sick for a few days and had loads of time to read but not enough material. I decided to pick this one up. As I started reading it, I got so engaged that I couldn't keep it down till I had finished it. After reading "Walk in the park", I had increased interest in learning about the American Indian tribes as well.  

The book starts with the life of Mollie, her sisters and her mother; and interspersed are details of the life of the Osage Tribe in general. The unfair laws that they were governed with - they were not allowed complete autonomy over their own wealth, of course how they were robbed of their land, how the little children were forced into attending schools away from their families and so on. Weaved into this story are the murders as they happen, in and around Mollie's family. Sometimes investigations are made into the murders, sometimes not. Even if investigations are done, they are dropped for some reason or another. Sometimes the investigator themselves are murdered. Osage Indians continue to bring the attention of the government to these murders and eventually, J. Edgar Hoover establishes Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into these murders. Led by Tom White. They encounter many obstacles like lack of evidence, lack of witnesses, etc. As they're collecting evidence and bring in suspects, they realize they need some database to store the fingerprints of suspects so that they can match them later to future evidence. This is when the fingerprint database was established. After much running around, they have the suspects lined up and the case goes to court. This is when they (FBI) learn that the hardest part isn't over yet. 

I loved reading this book! Learning about the lives of the Osage Indians, the treatment they were meted out, how FBI came into being and so on. So many things to learn.

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.

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.

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.

Anxious People

 

Author: Feredrick Bachman

I'm sort of a fan of Frederick Bachman. Love his humor - think "A man called Ove". And he didn't disappoint with "Anxious People" either! Love every bit about this book!

The story is set at an open house which is hijacked by a bank robber, who is robbing a bank for the first time. In fact they are robbing anything for the first time. Everybody who's at the open house is a hostage and every one is a hostage for the first time. There';s a wide variety of people who are at the open house - an old woman, a lesbian couple, an old couple and so on. Each has a story of their own. As they spend time together being hostages, stories start unravelling. There is a lot each has to share with the others and there's a lot of practical advice they get from other's life and experience. While listening to other's stories and offering advice, many realize what's going on in their lives. A very engrossing story with wit, humor and compassion.

Bottomline: Definitely read this book!

A gentleman in Moscow

 Author: Amor Towles

Love love love this book! It has so many elements in it that it would be hard to list them all. What I loved the most about the book is the expression of the author. Had me laughing half the time. The book does get serious after sometime and at that point you're so invested in the story that you anyway want to read it. The vivid description by the author makes you feel as if you are right there.

The story is about a Count Alexander Rostov who, as his title suggests was a count and hence used to all the luxuries, is now sentenced to house arrest in a hotel. When a Count, he would stay in a suite in the same hotel and now he must live in a 1-room attic. Count is a man of wit and humor; and not one to self-pity. While you feel sad that he is relegated to such a state, his attitude towards it inspires you. He believes in "when life gives you lemon, make lemonade". It is so heartening to see how he lives his life from there on. He comes to a meet a little girl and they become good friends. There is much he learns from this girl. The story also wraps around the events that were happening in Russia around that time (1922).

As I said there are so many aspects to love about the book! I would highly recommend reading it especially if you like to read humor.

Silent patient

 Author: Alex Michaelides

This was a good thriller! If you are looking for one then consider adding it to your list! I could not guess till almost the end what was happening (well it could just be me :))!

The book is about Alicia Berenson, a famous painter and Theo Faber, a criminal psychologist. Alicia leading a happy married life, is all of a sudden accused of shooting her husband. Not once, not twice but five times. From then on she refuses to talk, her paintings become sought after and highly valued and at the same time casts bad light on Alicia. 

Theo Faber, is intrigued by Alicia's refusal to talk and wants to take up the challenge of getting her out of this state. Towards that end, he gets a job at the center where Alicia is moved to and gets assigned to her case. His journey with her has less ups and more downs. He gets some breaks where he thinks he's having success and that pumps him up. Only later to find out he has had a setback. Be it Alicia causing self-harm or harming another inmate at the center. His treatment for Alicia consumes his personal and professional life. At the end, he does have success but that changes everything.

It was quite a thrilling book for me and kept me on the edge. One of those books which given time I would have liked to finish in one sitting :)

Know my name

 Author: Chanel Miller

A memoir by Chanel Miller, earlier known as Emily Doe to the world. She was a victim of sexual assault at Stanford, California. She is neither the first nor the last such victim. However, she is one of the few who opened herself to the world. Many victims don't even report their cases. She reported it and then made her statement public and now has written the full story. 

One must read the book, to see the story from the perspective of the victim. Right from when the attack happened to how her life changes for not just next few months but for years to come; and her struggles in the court. It is not just her but everybody around her as well who is impacted. Slowly and gradually as she reveals what happened to some of her close friends she finds out how many of them have gone through it in the past but never told anybody. What happened to her was a fact and yet she had to fight a battle in the court. How the media talked about what would happen to the sports career of the attacker but nobody talked about how it had ruined the life of the victim. 

In cases of sexual assault while people do always pity the victim, they also almost always find ways to point finger at the victim. Things like she was wearing clothes that expose her body or she was drunk or she was out in the middle of the night. I always thought it was wrong to think like that and when reading Chanel's story I felt even more strongly for it. There is no excuse for such a crime - just like there's no excuse for any other crime.

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine

 Author: Gail Honeyman

Loved reading this book! 

Eleanor will strike most as an odd woman. Everything in her life is calculated, scheduled and organized. She has never taken a day off from her work. She does not talk to anybody unless she needs to - which doesn't happen often. That means after she goes home from work on Fridays she spends close to 72 hours without having spoken to anybody. She has never eaten a pizza except from the supermarket. There is good reason behind all of this.

All that is about to change as she bumps across Raymond, the IT guy at work and at the same time has a crush on a local singer. The latter, while not very productive in itself, motivates her to go out of her comfort zone and also talk to Raymond on things not related to work. As she ventures into areas which she hasn't explored before - like getting a new hairstyle or using a personal shopping assistant to select an outfit that suits her the most - she discovers new things. She finds out that she too can get compliments. That it feels good to get compliments. That she too can be a source of information and people are coming to her to ask where she got her hair done. 

On the other hand without realizing she's fostering a friendship with Raymond. It all starts when they both save Sammy, an elderly gentleman. As their relationship develops, there are so many emotions that she experiences for the first time and it makes her realize what she was missing in her life.

Everything was going well when suddenly her world falls apart. But there is much to learn there as well.

At every step Eleanor's willingness to change and learn is so inspiring! The book is full of good humor. After the first few pages itself, you can figure out that the book is written by a British author. The language is so beautiful and expressive. A good break from the conversational English that abounds in books these days.

Positive discipline for Preschoolers

Author: Nelsen, Erwin, Roslyn and Duffy

There are multiple version of this book. The original - Positive discipline and then specific ones for different age groups like this for preschoolers.

The book, as the tag line says, focuses on disciplining kids using respectful means. The main premise of the authors is that as parents we must always be respectful to the kids even when we are disciplining them. While it makes a lot of sense, I feel one does tend to forget it. You need to consciously remind yourself of this. While being respectful, to discipline kids you must be kind and firm at the same time. As an example, the author talks about a case where the mother asks her child whether they would like cereal A or B. The child picks one of the choices (giving them age appropriate choices helps make them responsible) but after eating a spoon complains that they don't like it. You then take away the cereal. Later the child says that they are hungry. You respectfully tell them that the lunch (or whatever the next meal is) will be at so and so time and you are sure they can handle themselves till then. You do not say things like "I told you you would be hungry", "You should have eaten your breakfast", etc.

You do not need to yell, shout or scream but you need to be true to your words. If you say that there is a consequence for doing a certain thing you must carry it through. It is important for the child to know that you will do as you say. This is the part about being firm.

Another trait that it focuses on is making kids responsible. As an example, there's a family where the father drops off the child to daycare when the father leaves for office. So the child is given their morning schedule in a visual form and needs to follow through it in order to be ready to leave with the dad. The visual schedule outlines that they need to brush then have bath then make their bed and so on. If the child is not ready by the time the dad is ready to go to work, then the child has to leave in whatever state they are in. If they have not changed their clothes then they go to daycare in their pajamas and with their change of clothes. Again, no taunting here.

Further it talks about what are different reasons why kids could be misbehaving. There are 9 temperaments and each kid falls into one or the other side of the temperament. Which side they fall into could give reasons behind their misbehavior. While this is the nature part of the child, you can try to influence it by giving them an environment (nurture) which encourages the right behavior. Then there is the birth order psychology. Whether you are the eldest, youngest or the middle one could tell some certain things about your personality. The author iterates again and again that none of these should be used to stereotype the child but to understand where they are coming from.

Hope all this has gotten you interested in reading this book! It gave me a sea of information of possible reasons behind misbehavior and how to tackle them. I may not remember all of them. Even if I can remember/implement 1-2 of the things that I learnt that would be great!

Nanaville

Author: Anna Quindlen

Another Anna Quindlen book! Just like the previous one, this one too was a pleasure to read! This book is about her journey as a grandparent. The challenges, the fun, the learning, the love - she talks about every aspect of being a grandparent and what makes it so enjoyable is the fact that she's so honest about everything. How there are times when she would like to advice something for her grandchild to his parents but thinks that it is not her place to do so; or when she couldn't control herself and did actually give the advice. How she hired somebody and took formal lessons in the foreign language of her grandchild so that she could converse with them in whatever language they understood. Even though she's a first time grandmother it is amazing how much thought she gives to everything. I love her sense of humor. For example, the time when her grandchild was a baby and crying in the middle of the night. She wanted to go pick him up and cuddle him and put him to sleep but knew that his parents were "sleep training" him and would not like it. Many a times reading her feelings/reactions also reminded me of my mom. I could see her having the same feelings/reactions.

Being a parent myself, I wanted to read this book to understand the world from the eyes of a grandparent. How they feel, what they would like, their predicaments. This was just the perfect book for it.

Lots of candles, plenty of cake

Author: Anna Quindlen

The author writes about her journey as a woman. How things changed for her with every decade, how she changed with every decade. It was a very interesting read and there were so many things that I could relate to and so many things that she said about life that I felt were spot on. There are bits and pieces from the book that have harbored a place in my mind. She says that how when you are older younger women will come to you and ask for advice. They feel there's a formula. That you do A, B and C and that will give you D. But there isn't. Also, what you want changes as you grow and as your circumstances change. And looking back so many times you feel that what happened is what you wanted even if at that time you didn't think so.
I loved loved reading the book and it's hard to give just one reason for it. It feels as if the author is right in front of you narrating, has a good mix of humor and life philosophy and feels very relatable. One of the reasons I wanted to read this book is to see her thoughts on when she's older; to understand what are the different perspectives/feelings one goes through as they age.
Bottomline: Loved it!

Woman in the window

Author: A. J Finn

This novel reminded me of "The girl on the train". Honestly till I'd realized that, I was very happy with it! I'd been looking for some book that would be hard for me to put down. It didn't fail there. There was more than one day when life came in between the book and me! Of course, life always wins.

The book is about a woman who has agoraphobia - fear of open spaces. So she's bound to her home and rarely ever goes out. With all the time she has on her hand, she spends it generously between drinking, watching thrillers and keeping tab on her neighbors. More than a tab actually. She uses her camera to zoom into her neighbors windows. One such day she saw a woman bleeding with some kind of silvery thing stabbed into her. She called the 911. However, since the para medics were taking time she decided to go help the woman. This was tough for her as she could hardly step outside - let alone walk all the way to her neighbors house. As a result, she collapsed midway. She woke up in a hospital only to find out she was being questioned about her mental state. Nobody believed what she had to say. The police did not find anything that would support her theory. She doesn't loose heart and continues to dig evidence for her story. For every evidence she unearths there is an explanation of how she conjured it up. Eventually she accepts that it was always a figment of her imagination. Given how much she was drinking and how alcohol does not mix well with her medications and all the thrillers she'd been watching, she had imagined it all up. Until one day when she found evidence that could not be refuted. That day changed her life.

Loved reading the book! It always kept me on the edge :)

Animal Farm

Author: George Orwell

I was looking for books to read when I remembered that I’d been wanting to read Animal Farm for a long time. I had heard a lot about this book so when it finally came up in my library queue, I was so excited! This book did not disappoint me – it was so interesting! The edition that I had, had a preface about George Orwell – what his political inclinations were, how he came about to write this book, his writing style etc. That was the icing on the cake! Fun fact – George Orwell was born in India (to his british parents). It turns out this story is a satire on Soviet Union. To me it felt like this is how most of the world works.

George Orwell’s writing style is very easy going while at same time it’s not as casual as having a conversation. It felt like just right to me. Left to myself, would have loved to finish this book in a few hours but you know how life goes! The story is about a farm where there are a bunch of animals. They have a human owner and his human employees. The humans are detested by the animals for they do not treat them well. No surprises so far. Some animals sow the idea of a rebellion amongst all the other animals and while the animals feel that they would never be able to do such a thing, one day they drove the humans out of the farm and became the owners of the farm. Since the animals don’t like humans and the other farms are run by humans – they do not interact with the other farms. They would like to spread their word to other animals on these farms that they can also take over their farms. However, that doesn’t happen. At this point, it was a true democracy – for the people, by the people and of the people. All the animals are very happy because they are all equals. Everybody (mostly) works equally hard, they get bumper harvests, are well fed and very happy. Slowly and gradually, as time goes by, without anybody realizing some animals get more power and better status than other animals. They now have a leader amongst them who dictates who does what and how the farm should be. This change in dynamics is so interesting to read and love how the author has shown the progression. I will leave the rest for you to read.

While reading the book, I was thinking isn’t this how real world is? Which is what made it all the more engrossing. Highly recommend reading this book!