Tag: family

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Review: The Missing

Rating: 3 Stars

The Missing by C. L. Taylor, is the story of a family torn apart by the disappearance of their son/ brother. Billy Wilkinson, a troubled fifteen-year-old, goes missing after an argument with his parents. Six months later, there is still no sign of Billy, and his family is splintering under the stress and uncertainty.

Claire Wilkinson, Billy’s mother, feels it in her bones that Billy is still alive, and so, she is eager to send out a second appeal for information. At the press conference, things don’t go according to plan, and Claire begins to realise that her family has been keeping secrets from each other. All of them have a reason to feel guilty about Billy’s disappearance, and slowly the truth begins to unravel in front of Claire’s eyes.

On top of all this, Claire starts having blackouts, waking up in most unusual and scary places, with no memory of the preceding hours. In these circumstances, as you read on, you realise that Claire, as a narrator, is not so reliable herself.

The book is fast paced and interesting. It shows the stress that families go through when a loved one goes missing, and how every individual has a different way of dealing with the stress. There is also the element of teenage angst and rebellion, and the unpredictability of a teenager’s mind. The overall picture that is painted here, however, is creepy and somewhat disgusting.

As the mom of a teenage son, I was not comfortable with reading about a delinquent fifteen-year-old and his rebellious attitude. There are some things that become horrifying when read in the context of a teenager. It is so in this book as well. The truth, when revealed, is so disgusting and revolting, that you wish you hadn’t read it.

As a story, there is suspense in the story, until about halfway through, when the message exchanges between two unknown individuals start making sense. From there on, you are almost sure about what must have happened. Still, the story keeps you interested till the end, which in my opinion is a bit of a letdown. After using such language, imagery and story arcs, the end seems too tame and predictable to me. Nonetheless, the book is interesting and worth a read if you are a fan of dark psychological thrillers.
Warning: This book contains sex, strong language, and Paedophilia.

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Review: The Hazel Wood

Rating: 4 Stars

Wow! What can I say about this book? Let me tell you right now that this book is not everyone’s cup of tea. Once in a while, a book comes along that you really like even when you can see the weaknesses in the story. This is one such book. I was transported into a world so dark and fantastic, a world of creepy fairy tales, that I didn’t really care about anything else but getting out of this world alive!

Alice is the grand-daughter of a once-famous author of sinister fairy tales, who she has never met. This is because for the seventeen years that she has been alive, she and her mother, Ella, have been running away from the bad luck that seems to be following them everywhere. When they get the news that her grandmother is dead, Alice and her mother draw a breath of relief and decide to restart their lives, believing the bad days behind them.

Then Ella is kidnapped and Alice decides to find her grandmother’s estate in order to free Ella. Her frustration mounts as she realizes that she has no knowledge of the fairy tales written by her grandmother about the fantastical Hinterland. With the help of a classmate, Ellery, who happens to be a fan of the Hinterland stories, Alice sets off to find her mother, and eventually, the truth about their lives.

As Alice and Ellery start their quest, you realize that nothing is as it seems, and the fairy tales are dark and full of horrors. The characters and the world they inhabit is chilling and deeply disturbing. There are no good guys in these stories, and Alice herself is a part of this world. It is a race against time, because time in Hinterland is not the same as that in our world. Years can pass in the blink of an eye, and days can seem to last forever. It is in this world that Alice has to fight her destiny and change her story before she is sucked back into it forever.

I always love a story that takes you into a dark world where you have to fight the demons inside you more than the ones on the outside. The Hazel Wood took me into this world, and all I can think about after finishing it is that I really want to read all these fairy tales. Someone, please find me a copy of Tales From The Hinterland!

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Review: The Keeper of Lost Things

Rating: 4 Stars

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan is a sweet book. It is a story of love and loss, and of lost things and people. As I write this, I realize that the simpler the story, the more difficult it is to write a review. Not because the story has nothing in it, but because it is a simple tale with no hidden meanings or life lessons.

Anthony Peardew collects lost things, not for himself, but in the hope that one day he can restore them to their real owners. So he goes about collecting objects he finds in different places; things like hair bobbles, jigsaw puzzle pieces, bracelets, and a biscuit tin containing some dead person’s ashes. All these things are kept safe in his study, duly labelled with the time and place of their discovery. But Anthony is growing old, and he needs to leave his collection with someone who will love it the same way he does, and who will work towards restoring the objects to their rightful owners.

Laura is Anthony’s assistant and as lost as one of Anthony’s things. When she finds out what Anthony has left her, she is overwhelmed by the task in front of her. With the help of a handsome gardener, a girl with Down Syndrome, a mangy dog, and a crazy ghost, Laura sets out to restore the lost things to their rightful owners, finding her own way in the process, and putting an end to the restlessness caused by a particular chain of events forty years ago.

The book is heartwarming and funny. It keeps going back and forth in time, with two different narratives that merge into one over a time period of forty years. Both stories are equally poignant with some laugh-out-loud and some heartbreaking moments. It took me a few days to read because I was on a break and busy with other things, but once I really got into it, I finished it in one night.

Read this book if you want a change of pace and some light hearted, sweet fun. This was a four star read for me.

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Review: Beartown

Rating: 4.5 Stars

After the last book mail I got, I had made a To Be Read pile and decided to read the books starting from the top. Beartown by Fredrik Backman was at the bottom of the pile because of its size. When I got disillusioned by a couple of books from the top, I was very tempted to cheat, take it out from the bottom and read it before the other books. After all, this book was written by the same author who wrote A Man Called Ove, and it was sure to be the pick-me-up I needed after reading some very mediocre books.

I’m glad I didn’t give in to my impulse. I’m glad I only read it after I had finished the other books in the pile. Infact, I should have waited a couple of more days before reading it. Because I still have a couple of reviews to write, and I sat down to write them too, but this book has completely, utterly left me unable to think of anything else! It has destroyed me. I have begun to question my sanity in not reading the reviews first and being blindsided by this heavyweight of a book.

Beartown is a very small town, becoming smaller by the day, with no prospects and no future, except for the junior ice hockey team. This team is what represents hope for the town, and this team is what the whole town revolves around. The book starts very slowly, as we get to know all the characters. And there are a lot of them, a whole town’s worth.

Normally, I give up trying to read a book long before I reach even a 100 pages, if nothing has happened. I don’t know what made me go on reading when all I wanted to do was put the book down and forget about it. I’m still not sure if I’m happy about sticking to it. I don’t like being so attached to fictional characters that I can feel their pain in my heart. It sucks.
Fair Warning: This book deals with rape and its aftermath.

The rape, when it happens, is shocking and violent, and sadly, echoes so many real-life incidents that you just stop reading for a while and need a moment to absorb it all. This, however, only leaves you feeling angry and wanting justice. What follows is what is really heart wrenching. For it reflects what every survivor has to go through. When a boy tells her to go to the police, the girl says it doesn’t matter because no one will believe her. Because the rapist is a hockey player. And Beartown is a hockey town.

Everything that happens in the book from that point on, is just how small towns, small hockey towns, small hockey towns that have nothing else to look forward to, react when their start player is accused of a crime by a girl. Nothing that happens is out of the ordinary. It is what would happen in any small town in the world where such a crime was committed. And this is what makes it so sad and heartbreaking.

What makes it all bearable is that when a family, already devastated by a tragedy, stands up against a whole town, there are still people who are brave enough to stand with them. Even if they are so few that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand, there is someone who has enough guts to stand up and tell everyone how wrong they are, there is someone who believes the word of the girl over that of the hockey star, there is someone who eventually, at the expense of everything they hold dear, is willing to tell the truth. This, after all, is also the story of individuals with big hearts and guilty consciences, individuals cut from the same cloth as the rest of the town, but with a different thinking.

In the end, you’re left feeling cheated, because there is no neat end to the chain of events that started on that one night. We’re given some glimpses of the future, and we know that life has gone on for everyone involved, and to some extent, it seems that justice has been served. Just not in the way you wanted.

Reading this book was a gut wrenching experience for me, and then I found out that there is also a sequel! No. My heart cannot stand it. I don’t know if I can gather enough courage to read through another book like this, but this will definitely remain one of those books that made me break down in tears. I’m almost afraid to think what Fredrik Backman has in store for this little town next.

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Review: The Immortalists

Rating: 3.5 Stars

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin is the sort of book that I hardly ever pick up to read. From all the reviews and pictures on Instagram, I was somehow under the impression that it was a fantasy novel! Yeah, I know. That’s how closely I read all the reviews! Actually, when there is so much noise around a particular book, I try to avoid reading it until it has all died down. The only problem with resisting this book was its cover. I am totally, completely in love with this cover. I can truthfully say that this is one book that I judged by its cover!

The story starts in 1969, when the four Gold siblings Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon decide to visit a fortune-teller. There are rumours that this woman can tell the date of your death. The siblings enter her place one by one, and when they come out, nothing is the same ever again.

The narrative spans from 1978 to 2010 as it follows the four siblings, all of them transformed by that one afternoon at the fortune-teller’s. Life takes them all on different paths when their father dies suddenly and they are faced with the question of mortality. Simon and Klara run away to San Francisco, while Daniel and Varya are left behind to take care of their mother.

Simon, who is the youngest and has not even finished high school, becomes a dancer and loses himself in the hedonistic world of San Francisco in the early 80s. His mother, who is already reeling from her husband’s death, is left stunned when her youngest and most favourite child runs away.

Klara, who has always wanted to be a magician, struggles to find a foothold in a business dominated by men. Her struggles to find her place in the world and to keep her demons away lead her to Las Vegas where she dreams of making it big.

Daniel, stays firm on his chosen path, studies medicine, gets married, and goes on to become a doctor in the army in the 2000s. However, even his practicality cannot stop him from regretting the afternoon when he convinced his siblings to go and see the fortune-teller.

Varya, the oldest and the most studious, has to stay at home looking after her mother after Simon runs away. Eventually, she studies science and goes into longevity research, becoming obsessed with finding the secret to immortality.

The conflict between religion and science, faith and proof, is a recurring theme in the book, as all the four children question the faith of their devout Jew parents. It also raises the question of whether the choices you make can change your fate. It tells the story of how sometimes the lines can blur between illusion and reality, and how there are some things that defy explanation. Above all, it is an ode to all siblings, close or strained, who are tied together by an invisible bond of blood.

I love reading books about siblings, because they remind me of my own relationships. My bond with my siblings is something that I hold very dear. This book gives rise to so many conflicting emotions, that you cannot help but feel emotionally drained at the end. I might not agree with a lot of things in the book, but that is only because of my own background and prejudices. For me, this was a superlative read. Oh, and one extra star for that gorgeous cover!
Fair warning: This book has religion, atheism, sexism, racism and homo sexuality. It is an unforgettable book if read with an open mind, and a mine of controversy if read with preconceived notions. It is not for anyone who gets offended by a non-conforming view of religion, or finds homosexuality an affront to their sensibilities.

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Sunday Musings: Celebrating International Women’s Day

It was International Women’s Day on Thursday, and all I saw on social media were posts about empowering women and girl power etc. I wanted to post something profound too, and racked my brain for a good idea. Alas, all I could hear in my brain was cheap Bollywood songs (which I had been listening to all day Wednesday) and how I needed to fortify myself before my son’s friends showed up for their play date in the evening! My brain becomes a useless organ when I need it to function the most. So I just gave up the idea of being deep and profound.

Then I thought maybe I could post something funny and witty (my brain refused to help me there either) but I had to drop that idea too because making fun will only lead to people being offended and telling me that I’m an evil woman who doesn’t care for the suffering of her sisters. It is after all “THE” thing to do – get offended by others’ opinions, while citing “Freedom of Speech” for your own. Le sigh.

So here I was with nothing to say about the most important day in a woman’s life. It’s women like me who bring down other women, not sharing their enthusiasm about such a landmark day! Just the thought of this had me scrambling to write an apology to my fellow sisters for being insensitive and unfeeling. Again, this useless brian of mine! Every word I wrote seemed like it would be offensive to someone, and I couldn’t take the pressure. Also, I thought, no one likes an apologist any way, so I’d better come up with some other idea.

With no ideas forthcoming, I thought I’d better get on with the cooking and cleaning. But it was my day, and I’ll be damned if I cooked or cleaned on my day! No way! My kids should be bringing me flowers, and my husband should be taking me out to dinner! I knew realistically it won’t be possible; said children have school from which they come back in the evening, and said husband was out of town for his office work. Still, cooking and cleaning were out of question for today.

As I was thinking about all this, my cleaning woman came to do her work. Oh, how I wish I had agreed to a man coming to clean the house, when given the option. Then I could have made him work without feeling guilty. I never plan for the future! So, I thought I’d give the maid a day off for Women’s Day, but she looked at me like I was crazy and said that she would rather work since she was being paid hourly. This Women’s Day was turning out to be a nightmare for me!

All was not lost though. I could still refuse to cook. That would show my kids. They need to remember these days, after all! So, I put away everything that I had taken out, and sat down with my book and went on to enjoy the day like I deserved after working so hard.

My ungrateful kids, though! They came home (with friends, I might add), and asked what we were having for dinner. I told them I hadn’t cooked anything because it was a special day for me. “But you didn’t cook anything yesterday either, or the day before. So what’s so special about that?” Pesky little so-and-so’s. “Mom, it’s Thursday. You never cook on Thursdays. We were just asking about what to order in!” Have I mentioned how I hate my kids?

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