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Back with the Q2 wrap up. I have posted reviews of some of my favorite reads that you can find on my profile.

Small Gods, Lessons in Chemistry and Mottled Dawn were definitely the highlights of this quarter for me.

Link to my Q1 wrap (in case anyone is interested)- https://www.reddit.com/r/Indianbooks/s/EXoVaYx1ik

How was your reading month/quarter? What all did you guys read!? What was your reading highlight?

It's that time of the month again so I'm back with my mini reviews. June was not a good reading month for me. Couldn't focus on reading and had to switch to audiobooks, couldn't go for denser books (had to even put my monthly Clarice Lispector read on backseat), but yeah books were my only escape and I'm really thankful for that. Quarterly wrap up is on the way as well and I hope to get into the right headspace to write some detailed reviews. Anyways, let's start with the mini reviews:

- Mottled Dawn by Saadat Hasan Manto (4.25/5 ⭐): The is a collection of 50 short stories and sketches set around the time of partition. What stands out the most is Manto's style of storytelling and narrative voice. Manto doesn't blame any side, he instead leaves you with an open ended choice, transferring the burden on you instead. The book makes you deeply uncomfortable, makes you face the greatest, most uncomfortable truths of human existence and behaviors. Not something I would recommend without a trigger warning, but definitely recommend to everyone who is interested. 

- Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (4/5⭐): The earth is experiencing alien invasion, millions evaporated within a matter of seconds. The survivors now have to participate in an intergalactic underground survivor reality show. We follow Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat Donut as they navigate through the initial levels of the game, trying to figure out the rules and logistics while creating their image and identity on the show. I loved this book. It's really entertaining. Not deep yet, but definitely entertaining, especially the audiobook(100% recommend the audiobook). I just wish I read it last year, I would've devoured the whole series in a month. But sadly now with my jam-packed reading schedule and life doing it's thing, I'll probably have to take a break before I read/listen to the next one. Looking forward to it nonetheless. 

- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (4/5 ⭐): Who rides your decision making? Your rational mind or or your emotion heart heart? Your sense or your sensibility? The book follows the Dashwood family, mainly the two of the three daughters Elinor and Marianne as they navigate through love and social norms in 19th century England. I read Sense and Sensibility as a part of a online book club. I would consider this my first Austen novel (although I did read P&P years ago but I remember nothing except the main events). Absolute loved this book, it was not at all what I was expecting it to be (in the best possible way). 

- The Hittchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (3.25/5⭐): The Earth is about to get destroyed to clear the route for an intergalactic highway. Arthur Dent and his alien friend Ford Prefect are the two survivors as they manage to hitchhike to an alien ship as the Earth gets destroyed. We follow their absurd adventures as theu figure out the everything. Honestly the book did not work for me. I wanted to love it so much, but just could not. I loved the observational humor and the wit but most of the absurd humor just did not hit. I can see why people like it, it's just not for me. I will probably read all the other parts (and continue the BBC radioshow) in future, but it's definitely not on my priority list. Not all books are for everyone and it's completely fine. 

It’s that time of month again so I’m back with my mini reviews. It was a good reading month but definitely went ‘too serious’. I tried looking for something fun and light to read but it mostly ended on a serious note.

- Água Viva by Clarice Lispector (4/5 ⭐️): I have posted a small review on it on my profile that you can check out. The best way to describe this book is that it's a fever dream. It's a book with no plot. It’s a meditation or ramblings of a painter trying to capture 'now' despite the practical limitations of languages and even his own existence. It’s extremely dense and extremely abstract.

- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (3.5/5 ⭐️): Set in the 1860s around the American Civil War, it’s the story of March family and their four girls: Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy. The book follows these four as they navigate through their lives, understanding the importance of things like family, love and hard work. My favorite thing about the book was its characters. The characters were well written, I felt an instant attachment to the four sisters, it felt like I’ve known them for years. I also liked the setting and the atmosphere it created. However, I was absolutely not a fan of the cheesy, over the top ‘morality’ in the book. The book was published in 1868 and it feels very dated in this aspect (despite being kinda ahead of its time). Overall I liked the book and I’m looking forward to read the rest of the series (especially to see the fate of all the characters).

- A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher (3.25/5 ⭐️): The book follows a 14y/o magical baker girl Mona who discovers a dead magician in her bakery one day. This event kickstarts her journey, unravelling a political conspiracy; the fate of the city lies now lies on Mona and her ‘bread magic’. An okay book. It was definitely entertaining and enjoyable. The magic was fun system was fun. It’s a middle grade/YA novel and it was really evident especially with the character writing, everyone other than the protagonist had the personality of a went cardboard. The world building could’ve been better (it definitely had great potential), this could just be the case of me not being the target audience for this book as well.

- YellowFace by R. F. Kuang (3.5/5 ⭐️): I have already posted a detailed review of the book that you can check out). Yellowface is part thriller, part satire about an unsuccessful white author who ends up stealing her dead successful Asian American author’s manuscript and publishes it under her own name. This starts her downwards spiral exposing the reality of the publishing world and social media. This was my 3rd book by her (other 2 being Babel and Katabasis) and her curse of ‘the concept of the book being 10x better than its execution continued). The book had great potential. It was entertaining but nothing more than that. I enjoyed its satirical parts quite a lot. However it was just a massive missed opportunity. The thriller part felt extremely underdeveloped, the tried asking some really interesting and important questions but left them midway only to go around in circle on one subplot. Not to mention author’s repeated self insert pattern that I’m not a fan of at all (didn’t like it in Katabasis, didn’t like it here either).

(PS- the image is made using Goodnotes 5 on my iPad)

I don't think R. F. Kuang needs an introduction anymore. Her books 'The Poppy War', 'Babel', Yellowface' and 'Katabasis' have been mainstream successes to the point that most people in the reading space are know about her or atleast have heard about her existence. Yellowface is not my first book by her that I've read but it's the book introduced me to the existence of Kuang back in the day. I wasn't a big reader but my YT algorithm decided to recommend me this awesome review? takedown? of the book by this fun booktuber @readwithcindy which kickstarted my habit of consuming hours long video essays and reviews of the books that I've not read yet, which I still continue to enjoy :)

Having known of the basic premise and the shortcomings of the book for a over 2 years now, i didn't think I would like this book at all. The only thing that led me back to this book was the recent controversy with Kuang's upcoming novel 'Taipei Story'. I was looking for something different from my usual reads so I decided to give it a try and honestly I ended up mostly liking it.

Coming to the book, Yellowface is part satire, part thriller about this struggling white author June Hayward who is friends with a super successful Asian American author Athena Liu. Athena accidentally passes away and June ends up stealing the manuscript of Athena's next novel and publishes it under her name (essentially doing a ‘Yellowface’; The Cambridge Dictionary describes 'yellowface' as 'the practise of white actors changing their appearance with make-up in order to play East Asian characters in films, plays, etc.') . This starts a downwards spiral into the depths of publishing, trolling and cancel culture.

The thing i liked the most about this book was that it was a great page turner. The pacing is mostly really good, it doesn't waste your time and gets to the point from the first chapter itself. I also liked how she wrote the two main central characters. Both Athena and June were written really well, they did not feel caricatures, they had great nuance and greyness to them. And overall the book was definitely an entertaining read.

Now coming on to the shortcomings (which were many). This is not my introduction to Kuang's writing(I've read Babel and Katabasis before), so I am aware that it's her style but I feel like she does too much of telling and little to now showing at all. There's a beauty to leaving some things unsaid, leaving some things to he read between the lines, but she spells everything out for you by the alphabets. This could just be me not being her target reader base but it's definitely something that I dislike about her style. There's too much 'on the face' messaging which I'm not a fan of at all. Next, all her characters other than the two central ones (Athena and June) were nothing more than cardboard cutouts. I can see what she was going for since this book was partly a satire but it was not executed well. And finally the ending (without giving any spoilers) felt like a nothingburger. Again, I can totally see what she was going for but it just definitely did not work.

The book starts a really interesting discussion on 'who gets to tell which story' but then abandons it midway; it starts a really good discussion of race vs class disparity, about privilege but then abandons it midway; the book starts transforming into a great psychological thriller but then abandons it midway as well only to spend an awful lot of time on explaining and re-explaining how the publishing industry works, how the cancel culture works and how difficult it is to publish in this online age. Don't get me wrong, these are great talking points and she does a great job in discussing it but the book keeps going in circles, rehashing these 3 at the expense of other potentially better and deeper things.

Overall Yellowface is an entertaining read but definitely lacks something crucial. It bears the usual curse of Kuang's writing: the concept of the book being better than its execution.

I discovered Clarice Lispector this year, have already watched her interviews and have read 5 of her books (well I guess she’s one of my favourite authors now), so I guess it was enough to go all in. Ended up buying rest of her available works (and her biography). Hope to have an awesome Clarice-ful rest of the reading year. Will keep y’all updated with reviews :)

There are some books that leave you speechless, leave you thinking that your vocabulary isn't rich enough to describe something. Such was the case for me with these two books. I read Near to the Wild Heart last month while I finished Água Viva yesterday, both were really beautiful, really fascinating and really tough reads for me (I ended up feeling a little dumb ngl).

Although each of them probably have enough material to write entire thesis on, and definitely deserve their separate reviews, but as I said I don't think I'll be able to do justice to these. These two definitely demand a re-read in future. So I'll probably stick to short reviews instead.

- Near to the Wild Heart (4/5⭐) : This was the debut work of Clarice Lispector and in no way it feels like one. Its such a great piece of high art. The book follows a woman named Joana who has been (and still is) on a journey of self discovery, trying to understand her own existence. We follow her from her childhood from living with her father, to getting orphaned and living with her aunt to now her present as a married woman in loveless marriage. Joana is like the personification of curiosity and observation. We explore the themes of freedom, mortality, womanhood, identity and meaning. Clarice's usual 'stream of consciousness' style of writing is just cherry on top. There's also a lot of imagery and symbolism (I was able to pick quite a lot but I'm definitely sure I've missed many, especially the religious ones).

- Água Viva (4/5⭐) : The best way to describe this book is that it's a fever dream. It's a book with no plot. Its a meditation or ramblings of a painter trying to capture 'now' despite the practical limitations of languages and even his own existence. The book feels like a hallucination, you never know where you'll be taken next, one moment you're listing your favorite flowers, while the very next you're in the mirror world of your consciousness. I don't think it needs to be said that art is an artist's extension, you can always find the artist bleeding into their art in some little way, and similar has been my observation with all of her books that I've read till now. I can always feel her in the writing even if it's a piece of fiction. However, this feeling was a lot more prominent with this book. Although this book is a fictional account of a painter, I read it as Clarice herself talking to us readers. Calling it abstract was an understatement. This too demands a re-read in future.

Having now read 5 of his works, I don't think you can ever go wrong with a Terry Pratchett book. Same goes for Small Gods. 

Small Gods is the 13th Discworld novel(as per release order; while it was my 4th Discworld novel that I read).

The book follows 'The Great God Om' as his time to return to the Discworld (and the creation of his new prophet) is here. The only catch? Om has somehow managed to manifest as a tortoise with no divine powers (with exception to some occasional mini lightning strikes) and his new prophet (and the only person who can listen to him) is just a simple and innocent boy Brutha, the only remaining true believer of Om. What follows is a almost a coming of age journey for both Om and Brutha, both learning to become a better human and a better God respectively. 

This book is probably one of the most fascinating takes on Gods and organised religions that I've come across. It has such a sharp satire on organised religion, a/mono/poly-theism, philosophy (and philosophers), atrocities commited in the name of faith, rewriting and misinterpretation of history etc etc. 

Terry Pratchett was an atheist and a humanist and you can totally see it in the book, but what makes this book better is his nuanced take on this topic. Nobody is above criticism. Being a theist didn't automatically make a character bad while being an atheist didn't automatically make a character good. We're all just a bunch of Venn diagrams, the presence or absence of one value doesn't always guarantee the presence or absence of another (humans really come as a package deal). The book is very human in that sense. 

I also loved how the book dealt with historical misappropriation and the hypocrisy of religious institutions.

**”Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.”**

I usually have an issue with the inconsequential side plots when it comes to Discworld books (which always end up lowering my rating), but i was so glad that this book had none of those. Everything ended up fitting like a puzzle. 

The book does so much without ever coming across as preachy. It's as much witty as it is deep. I think this line sums up the message of the book really well:

**It's hard to explain," said Brutha. "But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave... you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.”**

April is almost over and I’m not likely to finish any other book this month, here’s my April’s reading wrap. This month was amazing. Added 2 books to my ‘favorite books of all time’ category. It was just phenomenal. I will (hopefully) try to post detailed reviews of atleast some of these, but for now here are some mini reviews.

- The Farthest Shore by Ursula K LeGuin (3.75/5⭐️): This is the 3rd book in of the EarthSea Saga. Honestly, explaining its plot on its own (without spoiling the events of previous books) is next to impossible, so I would just comment on the themes and writing. The writing was phenomenal (as usual). Crisp and precise, not a single word was wasted. Thematically, however, I found it less appealing in comparison to the previous two books, it was more towards your usual action packed fantasy which I surprisingly disliked as my expectations while reading an Ursula K LeGuin novel are way higher. Overall not a bad book on its own, but I had to rate it lower than the previous 2 books in the series).

- Small Gods by Terry Pratchett(4.75/5⭐️): I’ve added this book to my ‘favorite books of all time list’. This was my 4th Discworld book overall and it was pretty much a perfect book. The book is about The Great God Om as his time to return to the Discworld (and the making of the next prophet) is here. The only catch? He has somehow managed to manifest as a tortoise with no divine powers and his next prophet (and the only person who can listen to him) is a simple and innocent boy Brutha (which is a word play on 'Brother' as used in organised religion) who is the only remaining true believer of Om. I won't spoil anything else as I hope you guys do find time to read it, but I'll just say that the book has such a great and sharp satire on religion, theism (mono/poly) , atheism, philosophy (and philosophers), atrocities commited in the name of faith, rewriting and misinterpretation of history, religious hypocrisy etc etc. In short nobody is safe and that's the best part of it. I usually have a bone to pick with Discworld books about their inconsequential side quests, but I’m so glad that this book did not have those. Everything came together in the best way possible.

- Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector(4/5⭐️): This was my third Clarice Lispector book (2026 is gonna be her year for me). I liked the book but sadly couldn’t love it. The writing was fire (as you would expect from her) but I felt a level of disconnect with this book. Further, it was definitely a tough read, it’s VERY symbolic and layered with its themes, definitely demands a re-read in future. The book talked about so many things and I’m not articulate enough to be able to explain. I understood the feelings, but I lack words.

- Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (5/5⭐️): Another book that became my ‘favorite books of all time’. Set in the 1950-60s USA, Lessons in Chemistry is the story of Elizabeth Zott, a Chemist who becomes the host of a daytime cooking show ‘Supper at six’ after being unethically fired from her research institute. The book explores sexism in society and academia, it challenges racism, gender norms and religions. It does so much in such a simple, engaging and entertaining way. I was introduced to the book through YT shorts of its Apple TV adaptation (although here as usual the book did things so much better). I deeply resonated with the book as someone from this field. It was such a complete book. I smiled, I laughed, I cried. Would definitely recommend it.