Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay. Determined to find her, Cee devotes her days to building a boat from junk parts scavenged inland, doing everything in her power to survive until the day she gets off the island and reunites with her sister.
In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara is also living a life of isolation. The eco-city she calls home is one of eight levitating around the world, built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.
Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But as the public decries her stance, she starts to second guess herself and decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own.
Joan He was born and raised in Philadelphia but still will, on occasion, lose her way. At a young age,she received classical instruction in oil painting before discovering that storytelling was her favorite form of expression. She studied Psychology and East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Pennsylvania and currently writes from a desk overlooking the Delaware River. Descendant of the Crane is her debut young adult fantasy.
𝐌𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠- ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞- Science Fiction, Young Adult, Mystery & Thriller, Fantasy
🌟𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙆 𝙍𝙀𝙑𝙄𝙀𝙒🌟
The story is told from two perspectives. Cee, who wakes up as an inhabitant three years ago and she has no idea why she ended up being there and how she got there. All she knows is that she has to find her sister Kasey. On the other hand, we have Kasey who lives in a city called “eco city” which is a floating city. The description of each and every thing was amazing.
I felt that the initial chapters were a bit confusing and for a moment I thought of DNFing this book but I am glad I did not because without any doubt, it was one of the best novels I have ever read. IT LITERALLY BLEW ME AWAY. The mysterious aspects associated with this book was just mind blowing and the twist was… I do not have enough words to express my feelings for this book. This book kept me on the edge of the seat throughout. I highly recommend this book not just to sci-fi readers but to everyone in general. While reading the book, I felt as if I am on a journey with both the characters and the description felt so real. I am definitely going to re-read it very soon. Another thing I loved the most about this book was that it was fast paced. I was able to finish more than 50% of the book in one sitting and to be honest, I could not sleep for days. I wish I could give this book all the stars in this world.
𝐅𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐐𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 ➖The problem with oceans? They always seem smaller from the shore. ➖It was the perfect place for hiding secrets. ➖When I linger in the memory, though, the water around us trembles.
I’m assuming since you are here, YOU ARE A CAPRICORN (I am a Capricorn tooooo!!)
Are you hardworking? Are you dedicated towards what you do? Are you passionate about achieving your goals and feel like nothing in the world can stop you? Are you progressive? Do you feel you are workaholic and you can work for hours at a stretch and still won’t get tired? Then, believe me YOU ARE A TRUE CAPRICORN.
Capricorns are considered to be one of the most hardworking and down to earth signs who do not go on telling everyone about their plans rather they will get things done, achieve what they wanted to and then they might tell you.
Here are 5 books that I want every Capricorn to read at least once in their life.
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work “her own darling child” and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen’s radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.
2. The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind.
Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn’s happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father—Pikeville’s notorious defense attorney—devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.
Twenty-eight years later, Charlotte has followed in her father’s footsteps to become a lawyer herself—the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again, and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized, Charlotte is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it’s a case that unleashes the terrible memories she’s spent so long trying to suppress–because the shocking truth about the crime that destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won’t stay buried forever. Packed with twists and turns, brimming with emotion and heart, The Good Daughter is fiction at its most thrilling.
3. With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain — and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life — and all the rules everyone expects her to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.
4. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan…. But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words… and she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?
5. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction ― many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual ― and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action… A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.
Hello fellow Bookworms!! Today I’ll be doing WWW Wednesday. I have seen a lot of book bloggers doing this every Wednesday thta’s why I thought of doing it as well…
WWW Wednesday is all about What I last read, What I am currently reading and What I will be reading next.
WHAT I LAST READ
The last book I read was The Importance of Being Earnest. It was a re-read since I was going through a reading slump. I think that happened because of my internal examinations and presentations. But somehow I was able to overcome reading slump.
Oscar Wilde’s brilliant play makes fun of the English upper classes with light-hearted satire and dazzling humour. It is 1890’s England and two young gentlemen are being somewhat limited with the truth. To inject some excitement into their lives, Mr Worthing invents a brother, Earnest, as an excuse to leave his dull country life behind him to pursue the object of his desire, the ravishing Gwendolyn. While across town Algernon Montecrieff decides to take the name Earnest, when visiting Worthing’s young ward Cecily. The real fun and confusion begins when the two end up together and their deceptions are in danger of being revealed.
WHAT I AM CURRENTLY READING
So, currently I’m reading What We Talk When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver. It is a collection of 13 short stories that talks about love, loss and companionship.
This powerful collection of stories, set in the mid-West among the lonely men and women who drink, fish and play cards to ease the passing of time, was the first by Raymond Carver to be published in the UK. With its spare, colloquial narration and razor-sharp sense of how people really communicate, the collection was to become one of the most influential literary works of the 1980s.
WHAT I AM PLANNING TO READ NEXT
The next book I am planning to read is Ruby Falls by Deborah Goodrich Royce. I got approved for the book on Netgally.
On a brilliantly sunny July day, six-year-old Ruby is abandoned by her father in the suffocating dark of a Tennessee cave. Twenty years later, transformed into soap opera star Eleanor Russell, she is fired under dubious circumstances. Fleeing to Europe, she marries a glamorous stranger named Orlando Montague and keeps her past closely hidden.
Together, Eleanor and Orlando start afresh in LA. Setting up house in a storybook cottage in the Hollywood Hills, Eleanor is cast in a dream role—the lead in a remake of Rebecca. As she immerses herself in that eerie gothic tale, Orlando’s personality changes, ghosts of her past re-emerge, and Eleanor fears she is not the only person in her marriage with a secret.
In this thrilling and twisty homage to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, the story ricochets through the streets of Los Angeles, a dangerous marriage to an exotic stranger, and the mind of a young woman whose past may not release her.
What was the last book you read? What are you currently reading and What are you planning to read next?
I’m assuming since you are here, YOU ARE AN ARIES then you are at the right place but I want you to ask a few questions to yourself.
Do you feel you are a confident leader? Do you feel you are highly competitive and can achive whatever you want? Are you unstoppable? Believe me YOU ARE A TRUE ARIES.
Aries are considered to be very Enthusiastic, Romantic, Dynamic, Optimistic yet a bit impatient. They are considered to be the most responsible zodiac sign amongst all the zodiac signs.
Here are 5 books that I want every Aries to read at least once in their life.
1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.
Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.
2. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl’s struggle for justice.
3. Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
“I’ve left some clues for you. If you want them, turn the page. If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.”
So begins the latest whirlwind romance from the bestselling authors of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?
4. Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren
Hazel Camille Bradford knows she’s a lot to take—and frankly, most men aren’t up to the challenge. If her army of pets and thrill for the absurd don’t send them running, her lack of filter means she’ll say exactly the wrong thing in a delicate moment. Their loss. She’s a good soul in search of honest fun.
Josh Im has known Hazel since college, where her zany playfulness proved completely incompatible with his mellow restraint. From the first night they met—when she gracelessly threw up on his shoes—to when she sent him an unintelligible email while in a post-surgical haze, Josh has always thought of Hazel more as a spectacle than a peer. But now, ten years later, after a cheating girlfriend has turned his life upside down, going out with Hazel is a breath of fresh air.
Not that Josh and Hazel date. At least, not each other. Because setting each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates means there’s nothing between them…right?
5. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
Set amid the austere beauty of the North Carolina coast begins the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner recently returned from the Second World War. Noah is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier, a girl he loved like no other. Unable to find her, yet unwilling to forget the summer they spent together, Noah is content to live with only memories…until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again.
Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. It is a story of miracles and emotions that will stay with you forever.
It’s March already!! February has been really hard for me in terms of reading. I was in a reading slump and I didn’t feel like reading anything but I was able to overcome my reading slump a couple of days back. For the month of March, I’ve planned that I’ll read only 5 books. I am not keeping the number too high because I know if I will set such big goalsss I won’t be able to achieve them.
1. With the Fire on High By Elizabeth Acevedo
With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain — and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life — and all the rules everyone expects her to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.
2. The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
Anna Fox lives alone, a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.
Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother and their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.
What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.
3. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him….
4. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl’s struggle for justice.
5. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
Are you struggling to get into any book? Trust me, we have all been there.
Even the biggest of the bookworms land up in a reading slump. So, do not worry! It may take some time for you to overcome your reading slump but remember that beating a reading slump is not so challenging. You need to keep a couple of things in your mind in order to get out of your reading slump.
I know you must have tried picking up a book but no matter hard you try, nothing seems to be working. Right? Sometimes the reading slump may last for a couple of days and sometimes even for a couple of weeks (Even for months in the worst case scenarios)
Let me begin by saying that reading slump has various phrases. The first and foremost being a phrase where you DO NOT feel like reading any book at all. I would suggest you not to force yourself into reading if you are at the first stage.
The next stage is where you are ready to pick up a book and you will end up reading just a couple of pages. Do not feel bad or guilty about it. Feel good because you are at least able to read. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a couple of pages. Be happy because at least you are making some progress.
Here are some of the best ways through which you can overcome the reading slump.
1. Take a break and do not force yourself to read
The first and foremost thing you need to accept is that you are going through a reading slump. I would mention this time and again that IT IS OKAY TO BE IN A READING SLUMP but forcing yourself to read a book that you do not feel like reading would be the worst course of action.
Try to channelize your energy in some other hobby or simply watch series/movies on Netflix, do bullet journaling, learn some new skills. I assure you that within a week you would feel refreshed.
2. Set achievable goals
When you are in a reading slump, it becomes very important to set achievable goals because if you are setting high goals for yourself, trust me you will not be able to achieve them. Do not force yourself to read a 300-400 page novel. When I was in a reading slump. I used to read 10 pages every day and at the end of the day when I used to achieve this goal, it used to provide me with a sense of accomplishment.
3. Try to make reading fun for yourself
The first thing you need to keep in mind is to make reading fun for yourself. Do not read just for the sake of reading. If you are not in the mood to read, let it be. Do not stress yourself to read a particular book if you don’t feel like reading it.
Try not to leave home without a book even if you know you aren’t going to read it.
4. Create a reading atmosphere
I would love to share that a couple of weeks back, due to my tests and assignment I was struggling to go through a book. I was looking forward to DNF that book but a part of me still wanted to read it. Then I found some relaxing Videos on YouTube which had the sound of rain and some sort of relaxing music.
And you won’t believe that with the help of that video, I was able to read 125 pages that day!!!! If it helped me I am pretty sure that it would help you as well.
5. Read at least one chapter before bed
Even if you are not reading the day long, try to read at least one chapter before bed. It will not just help you overcome your reading slump but also is very beneficial for sleep as well.
6. Step out of your comfort zone
I completely understand that for some readers, this is how you ended up landing into the reading slump but still I would suggest you to try stepping out of your comfort zone.
I’ve always been a person who loves watching thrillers/horror but never thought of picking up any thriller book. Last year, when I was in a reading slump, I ended up picking “The Good Daughter” by Karin Slaughter and ever since then, I am recommending it to everyone. I think, stepping out of my comfort zone helped me a lot to overcome the reading slump.
7. Go for short story collections
I think short story collections have always helped me overcome the reading slump. It would help to get you back into the feeling of reading and the moment you’ll finish a story you will be motivated to finish the rest of the stories in that particular book. In the end, the accomplishment you’ll get by finishing the book would be so satisfying.
8. Re-read your favorite novel
This is the simplest way to overcome reading slump but sometimes you might not want to read the book since you have already read and know the ending.
Whenever I am in a reading slump I read any book by Jane Austen. Believe me, I have read Pride and Prejudice 7-9 times and every time I read it I have some different opinion about the various characters. I even came up with various ideas and decided to prepare a guide to Jane Austen wherein I have focused on various things like- Why every man needs to read Jane Austen, My take on the Jane Austen couple, Why I fell for Mr. Darcy at the first place etc.
9. Do not go for a thick fat book
It is better to pick a book that you feel would take just a couple of days to get through. If you are not able to read more than 20-25 pages in a reading slump then I would suggest you not to go for lengthy books. It is very important to understand that when you are at a stage where your reading is very slowed down and you do not feel like reading much finishing even a single book can be a great accomplishment.
The story revolves around Tommy Henry who goes through a lot of ups and downs in his life. In the initial chapters, we get introduced to the Henrys’ and the beautiful emotions that resides within that family. Beau and Marian Henry (parents of Tommy Henry) come to know that their younger child James, who is four years old is suffering from a kind of cancer Leukemia.
Without revealing much about the story I would ask you to read it only if you’re not a person with a sensitive heart. Regardless of the small chapters, each chapter holds some or the other sort of emotions in it.
Friendship is a lifelong relationship and I must say that this novel portrays it really well. “Medicine Game” is a novel that brings a new meaning to the definition of friendship. I totally feel that this book is a treasure. The author was very well able to write the book in such a way that there are definitely parts that you’ll need to have your tissues handy for.
It was well thought out and amazing. The plot never truly stopped, it continued moving. It took me just a couple of days to finish this book and trust me this is worth a read! I feel that this review won’t be able to convey the thoughts or feeling that I hold for this book. I would say this time and again that you need to read this book!! I highly recommend it.
The brand new crime thriller from the bestselling author of the Perfect series – Helen Fields is back with her first stand-alone novel!
He collects his victims. But he doesn’t keep them safe.
Elspeth, Meggy and Xavier are locked in a flat. They don’t know where they are, and they don’t know why they’re there. They only know that the shadow man has taken them, and he won’t let them go.
Desperate to escape, the three of them must find a way out of their living hell, even if it means uncovering a very dark truth.
Because the shadow man isn’t a nightmare. He’s all too real.
I wish I could give this book all the stars in this world.
The story revolves around Dr. Connie Woolwine (Forensic Psychologist) who is working with Detective Brodie Baarda on the case of Elspeth Dunwoody who was being kidnapped in Edinburgh. Prior to her kidnapping, a murder also took place. After both these incidents, a 12-year-old also went missing.
Connie believes that all these events are associated since no ransom have been made. She clearly states that the person who is behind all these events have something else in his head.
It took me a couple of chapters to completely get into the book but later I realised that this was an ultimate page turner. One of those sleep-snatchers. I promise, once you will pick this book, you will quickly become addicted to this story and won’t be able to put it down.
It was engaging, it was mysterious and at times even moving… it was so so so so gooood.
woo-hoo!! January started of really well. I am very happy to say that I was able to finish 7 books this month.
I know I am a bit late at posting the January Wrap-up because I was tied up with some work. I couldn’t find time to sit and write a post. So, here we go…
Jane Austen’s first novel—published posthumously in 1818—tells the story of Catherine Morland and her dangerously sweet nature, innocence, and sometime self-delusion. Though Austen’s fallible heroine is repeatedly drawn into scrapes while vacationing at Bath and during her subsequent visit to Northanger Abbey, Catherine eventually triumphs, blossoming into a discerning woman who learns truths about love, life, and the heady power of literature. The satirical novel pokes fun at the gothic novel while earnestly emphasizing caution to the female sex.
A Palestinian American woman wrestles with faith, loss, and identity before coming face-to-face with a school shooter in this searing debut.
A uniquely American story told in powerful, evocative prose, The Beauty of Your Face navigates a country growing ever more divided. Afaf Rahman, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is the principal of Nurrideen School for Girls, a Muslim school in the Chicago suburbs. One morning, a shooter—radicalized by the online alt-right—attacks the school.
As Afaf listens to his terrifying progress, we are swept back through her memories: the bigotry she faced as a child, her mother’s dreams of returning to Palestine, and the devastating disappearance of her older sister that tore her family apart. Still, there is the sweetness of the music from her father’s oud, and the hope and community Afaf finally finds in Islam.
The Beauty of Your Face is a profound and poignant exploration of one woman’s life in a nation at odds with its ideals.
FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING RICHARD & JUDY PICK AND KINDLE CHART-TOPPING SENSATION.
Thirty years ago, three school-friends took a walk in the woods. Only two came back – their memories a jumble of hallucinations and twisted visions.
There is a chilling reason why nobody looked for the missing girl.
Now, disgraced investigator ROWAN BLAKE will discover that in the remote and desolate Wasdale Valley, nothing stays buried forever.
Murder and suspense are entwined with supernatural overtones and blistering social commentary in this fast-paced whodunit set in the rugged surroundings of England’s Lake District
Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction ― many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual ― and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action… A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.
Nick and Amber Miller are splitting up and selling their Devon family home. But despite the desirable location, the house isn’t moving. Not a single viewing so far.
When their estate agent suggests an open house event, Amber agrees, even as she worries about their gossiping neighbours attending and snooping around their home.
But Amber has more to worry about than nosy neighbours. Because thirteen people enter her house that afternoon, and only twelve leave.
Someone doesn’t want the house to sell, and is willing to do anything to stop it…
As the Whitworth family begin renovations on their new home, their plans are brought to an abrupt end when they discover a body buried in the back garden.
DI Isabel Blood and her team are called to investigate, but as she approaches Ecclesdale Drive, a feeling of unease settles in her gut.
The property cordoned off is number 23. The house she used to live in as a child…
The forensic team estimate that the body has been in the ground for up to forty years – coinciding with the time Isabel’s family lived in the house.
Isabel’s father vanished without a trace when she was fourteen years old. And with her mother remaining tight-lipped about her father’s disappearance, Isabel can’t escape the unnerving sense of dread that it’s his body, buried in the garden.
A dejected filmmaker lets his curiosity get the best of him and plunges into a web of depravity and danger from which there might be no escape.
Theo Snyder is at the end of his rope. One minute he was on top of the world, his documentary film The Basement a massive critical and commercial hit, the next crestfallen when his latest film was canceled after an embarrassingly public misstep. As his desperation grows, he makes a bold decision: to pursue the story of the notorious “Halo Killer,” Jasper Ross-Johnson. But delving into the life and mind of a serial killer could prove more deadly than Theo ever could have imagined.
At first, things are looking up. Jasper is willing to talk, the footage of the jailhouse meetings is spectacular, and famed investigator Zora Neale Monroe joins him on the project. Theo is sure he’s getting close to something no one else has discovered: the truth about why Jasper was captured before he could kill his final victim. Someone else was on the beach that day, someone who knows a lot more than they’re telling and just might know how it all happened. The truth could lead to more killing–unless Theo can uncover the real ending to the story of the Halo Killer first.
Are you looking for some great Japanese translated novels? Keep on reading because you are at the right place.
I feel that Japanese literature has overshadowed all the other literature across the globe simply because is told from very different, rather strange. I am saying strange because some Japanese stories are told from the perspective of cat while some from the perspective that we do not find in any other literature.
Do we find such narratives in the literature from any other country?
Certainly not.
Japanese Literature makes even the most strange things happen and that is something which makes me read more. I have made a list of all the books that will make you fall in love with Japanese literature.
1. Men Without Women
Men without women is a collection of several short stories about men who are suffering from isolation due to the loss of women in their lives. Every story was different in its own way.
𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐫 ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 It follows an actor who appoints the female driver in order to take him to the rehearsals. Initially, that in the journey can ever used to even talk to each other but gradually he reflects on his life about his wife and all the affairs she had before she died.
𝐘𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5 “Yesterday is two days before tomorrow, The day after two days ago.” The story follows two characters— Erika and Kitaru and its a journey of their relationship.
𝐀𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧 ⭐️⭐️/5 The story follows Dr. Tokai who feels that “Women are all born with a special, Independent organ which allows them to lie.”
𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐳𝐚𝐝𝐞 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5 It is a story about a man named Habara who is confined within his own house. Twice or thrice in a week, a woman comes to supply him food. The man in this story calls the women by the name ‘Scheherazade’. The lady tell various stories to Habara and he is always worried whether he’ll be able to see her again or not.
𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐨 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 This story follows a man who opens a bar just to keep his mind distracted. He was continuously running away from the feeling that his wife broke up with him. He was hurt deep inside. Why I gave this story 5 star?because I got magical realism vibes the most from this particular story.
𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐬𝐚 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5 This story but somewhat similar to Franz Kafka’s— metamorphosis. It follows a boy who wake up one morning and found that you have turned into an insect.
𝐌𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 It’s a story about a man who receives a call in the middle of the night from his ex girlfriend’s husband who tells him that she has died.
Sometimes you have to leave behind everything you know to find the place you truly belong…
Nana the cat is on a road trip. He is not sure where he’s going or why, but it means that he gets to sit in the front seat of a silver van with his beloved owner, Satoru. Side by side, they cruise around Japan through the changing seasons, visiting Satoru’s old friends. He meets Yoshimine, the brusque and unsentimental farmer for whom cats are just ratters; Sugi and Chikako, the warm-hearted couple who run a pet-friendly B&B; and Kosuke, the mournful husband whose cat-loving wife has just left him. There’s even a very special dog who forces Nana to reassess his disdain for the canine species.
But what is the purpose of this road trip? And why is everyone so interested in Nana? Nana does not know and Satoru won’t say. But when Nana finally works it out, his small heart will break…
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
A magnificent blending of the music, the mood, and the ethos that was the sixties with the story of one college student’s romantic coming of age, Norwegian Wood brilliantly recaptures a young man’s first, hopeless, and heroic love.
Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction ― many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual ― and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action… A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.
Tsukiko is drinking alone in her local sake bar when by chance she meets one of her old high school teachers and, unable to remember his name, she falls back into her old habit of calling him ‘Sensei’. After this first encounter, Tsukiko and Sensei continue to meet. Together, they share edamame beans, bottles of cold beer, and a trip to the mountains to eat wild mushrooms. As their friendship deepens, Tsukiko comes to realise that the solace she has found with Sensei might be something more.
What would you change if you could go back in time?
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?
A bestseller in France and winner of Japan’s Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, The Guest Cat, by the acclaimed poet Takashi Hiraide, is a subtly moving and exceptionally beautiful novel about the transient nature of life and idiosyncratic but deeply felt ways of living. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife — the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens….
As Kenzaburo Oe has remarked, Takashi Hiraide’s work “really shines.” His poetry, which is remarkably cross-hatched with beauty, has been acclaimed here for “its seemingly endless string of shape-shifting objects and experiences,whose splintering effect is enacted via a unique combination of speed and minutiae.”
Among the jumble of paperweights, plates, typewriters and general bric-a-brac in Mr Nakano’s thrift store, there are treasures to be found. Each piece carries its own story of love and loss – or so it seems to Hitomi, when she takes a job there working behind the till. Nor are her fellow employees any less curious or weatherworn than the items they sell. There’s the store’s owner, Mr Nakano, an enigmatic ladies’ man with several ex-wives; Sakiko, his sensuous, unreadable lover; his sister, Masayo, an artist whose free-spirited creations mask hidden sorrows. And finally there’s Hitomi’s fellow employee, Takeo, whose abrupt and taciturn manner Hitomi finds, to her consternation, increasingly disarming. A beguiling story of love found amid odds and ends, The Nakano Thrift Shop is a heart-warming and utterly charming novel from one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary novelists.
Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste.
But everything is about to change.
Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. She begins to teach him her craft, but as their friendship flourishes, social pressures become impossible to escape and Tokue’s dark secret is revealed, with devastating consequences.
Sweet Bean Paste is a moving novel about the burden of the past and the redemptive power of friendship. Translated into English for the first time, Durian Sukegawa’s beautiful prose is capturing hearts all over the world.
On the eve of the Iraq War, a man and a woman meet in a nightclub in Tokyo. They go to a love hotel, and spend the next five days in a torrid affair. Written in a stream of consciousness, with the reader’s perceptions shifting and melting into one another, what is remarkable in this story is not what happens, but the ability of the writer to enter the minds and memories of the protagonists.In the second story, a woman living in a damp flat obsesses on the filthy state of her dwelling. She remains in bed for the duration of the narrative, but the drama and tension of her inner life – spiralling further and further into her memories and anxieties – keep the reader engrossed to the very end.The End of the Moment We Had demonstrates the fluidity and richness of this extraordinarily gifted writer’s language and ideas.
Trapped in Tokyo, left behind by a series of girlfriends, the narrator of Slow Boat sizes up his situation. His missteps, his violent rebellions, his tiny victories. But he is not a passive loser, content to accept all that fate hands him. He attempts one last escape to the edges of the city, holding the only safety net he has known – his dreams.
Filled with lyrical longing and humour, Slow Boat captures perfectly the urge to get away and the necessity of finding yourself in a world which might never even be looking for you.
A haunting, Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.
When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.
A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.
‘He’d come to realise that it was a mistake to grind up his father’s remains with such a thing. The mortar was lined with narrow grooves, a little too perfect for ashes to get stuck in.’
Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door.
First discovered by Nishi in the little-known photo-book ‘Spring Garden’, the sky-blue house soon becomes a focus for both Nishi and Taro: of what is lost, of what has been destroyed, and of what hope may yet lie in the future for both of them, if only they can seize it.
Tomoka Shibasaki was born in 1973 in Osaka and began writing fiction while still in high school. After graduating from university, she took an office job but continued writing, and was shortlisted for the Bungei Prize in 1998. Her first book, A Day on the Planet, was turned into a hit movie, and Spring Garden won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2014.
Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Emperor, Kazu’s life is tied by a series of coincidences to Japan’s Imperial family and to one particular spot in Tokyo; the park near Ueno Station – the same place his unquiet spirit now haunts in death. It is here that Kazu’s life in Tokyo began, as a labourer in the run up to the 1964 Olympics, and later where he ended his days, living in the park’s vast homeless ‘villages’, traumatised by the destruction of the 2011 tsunami and enraged by the announcement of the 2020 Olympics.
Akutagawa-award-winning author Yū Miri uses her outsider’s perspective as a Zainichi (Korean-Japanese) writer to craft a novel of utmost importance to this moment, a powerful rebuke to the Imperial system and a sensitive, deeply felt depiction of the lives of Japan’s most vulnerable people.
The novel starts in the 1960s when 17 people die of cyanide poisoning at a party given by the owners of a prominent clinic in a town on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer’s, and the physician’s bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury. The youth who emerges as the prime suspect commits suicide that October, effectively sealing his guilt while consigning his motives to mystery.
The police are convinced Hisako had a role in the crime, as are many in the town, including the author of a bestselling book about the murders written a decade after the incident, who was herself a childhood friend of Hisako’s and witness to the discovery of the killings. The truth is revealed through a skillful juggling of testimony by different voices: family members, witnesses and neighbors, police investigators and of course the mesmerizing Hisako herself.
The tense, chilling story of four women haunted by a childhood trauma.
When they were children, Sae, Maki, Akiko and Yuko were tricked into separating from their friend Emily by a mysterious stranger. Then the unthinkable occurs: Emily is found murdered hours later.
Sae, Maki, Akiko and Yuko weren’t able to accurately describe the stranger’s appearance to the police after the Emily’s body was discovered. Asako, Emily’s mother, curses the surviving girls, vowing that they will pay for her daughter’s murder.
Like Confessions, Kanae Minato’s award-winning, internationally bestselling debut, Penance is a dark and voice-driven tale of revenge and psychological trauma that will leave readers breathless.
Ms Ice Sandwich seems to lack social graces, but our young narrator is totally smitten with her. He is in awe of her aloofness, her skill at slipping sandwiches into bags, and, most electric of all, her ice-blue eyelids. Every day he is drawn to the supermarket just to watch her in action. But life has a way of interfering – there is his mother, forever distracted, who can tell the fortunes of women; his grandmother, silently dying, who listens to his heart; and his classmate, Tutti, no stranger to pain, who shares her private thrilling world with him.
Tender, warm, yet unsentimental, Ms Ice Sandwich is a story about new starts, parents who have departed, and the importance of saying goodbye.
Banana Yoshimoto’s novels have made her a sensation in Japan and all over the world, and Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, is an enchantingly original and deeply affecting book about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine of Kitchen, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, she is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who was once his father), Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale that recalls early Marguerite Duras. Kitchen and its companion story, “Moonlight Shadow,” are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.
The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. Later, Mari is interrupted again by a girl from the Alphaville Hotel; a Chinese prostitute has been hurt by a client, and she needs Mari’s help. Meanwhile Mari’s beautiful sister Eri sleeps a deep, heavy sleep that is ‘to perfect, too pure’ to be normal; she has lain asleep for two months. But tonight a the digital clock displays 00:00, a hint of life flickers across the TV screen, though the television’s plug has been pulled out. Strange nocturnal happenings, or a trick of the night?
A mystery story about love, the cosmos and other fictional universes
Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel.
Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire.
Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished…
A Book and A Dream 