A Diverse, Feel Good Book // ARC Review: The Way You Make Me Feel by Maureen Goo

Title: The Way You Make Me Feel
Author: Maureen Goo
Publication Date: May 8th 2018
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, Giroux (Macmillan)
Part of a Series?: No, A Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Macmillan Intl (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon US || Barnes and Noble || Wordery || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books

Blurb Description: From the author of I Believe in a Thing Called Love, a laugh-out-loud story of love, new friendships, and one unique food truck.
Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn't so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute. Maybe Clara actually feels invested in her dad’s business. What if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind? 

With Maurene Goo's signature warmth and humor, The Way You Make Me Feel is a relatable story of falling in love and finding yourself in the places you’d never thought to look.

THIS BOOK MADE ME LAUGH.

Which is rare. I IMMENSELY enjoy and get HIGHLY invested in a few books too many than is healthy, but I very rarely laugh because of a book.

 

The Way You Make Me Feel, in a nutshell, was an adorable read, filled with GREAT FOOD, diversity and anxiety rep that also made for a wonderful, light summer read and the perfect way to close out my last summer as a student (hello, senior year and my twenties *bursts into tears*)

There were a lot of things I really liked about this book, so let’s break it down:

1.       KOREAN – BRAZILIAN FUSION FOOD: If you read the synopsis, (directs you upwards) you’ll know that our main character spends her summer working in her dad’s Korean-Brazilian fusion food truck and OH MY GOD THE DESCRIPTIONS OF FOOD AND THE DIVERSITY IN THE FOOD WERE ESSENTIALLY THE BEST THING IN THE FOOD.  

2.       ALL THE DIVERSITY: Our main character, Clara Shin is Korean and Brazilian. Her co-worker on the food truck is African American and it all just felt right. It was so well done, and I loved how Maureen Goo portrayed her characters, especially how their skin color and roots were a part of who they were, and they were also so much more.

 

3.       THIS WAS KIND OF HILARIOUS?: I read a sampler before requesting this book, and this book made me laugh in the VERY first scene which contained feminism, prom queens and tampons and I kept laughing after.

4.       IT JUST MADE ME FEEL GOOD: Reading this story made me feel happy. I don’t know if it was Hamlet, the ADORABLE love interest, the fact that it was a summery read and also a love letter to LA and delicious food OR Clara’s personal growth, but I loved it regardless.

The One Thing I Thought Could Have Been Better:

1.       The Lack of Connect/ The Extreme fast pace of everything: When I read The Way You Make Me Feel, I felt disconnected from the story and all the brilliant elements playing out on the paper. I quickly realised it was because I felt like the dialogue was… insubstantial and very fast and there was SO MUCH TELLING AND NOT SHOWING, that I simply didn’t enjoy it as much.

Would I recommend this book? YES. The Way You Make Me Feel was a hilarious, feel-good, summer read with some great character growth, diversity, romance and family. 

Maurene Goo grew up in a Los Angeles suburb surrounded by floral wallpaper and piles of books. She studied communication at UC San Diego and then later received a Masters in publishing, writing, and literature at Emerson College. Before publishing her first book, Since You Asked, she worked in both textbook and art book publishing. She also has very strong feelings about tacos and houseplants and lives in Los Angeles.

What are some of your favourite diverse reads of the year?

Have you read any of Maureen Goo's books?

What did you think of them?

 

#DesiRepDiscussions - Existing Representation in Books by Enna

Hey guys!

Over the past couple years, the #DiverseReads movement has gained momentum and people have become aware of reading books that have characters that are not just cis straight and white. After All, this world is a huge place and there are many different, diverse people here that are not straight or white. They have been poorly represented in media for a long time and that has taken its toll.

Desis are an example of such oppressed voices. We have not been represented in a good light in the western media, but, thankfully, that has changed in the last few years and with emerging authors such as Roshani Chokshi, Sandhya Menon, Tara Sim, Dhonielle Clayton, Sabaa Tahir etc, hopefully, people will see us in a better light and begin to understand our culture more.

The purpose of this discussion event is to make others aware of the lush, beautiful desi culture and to tell them more about us. So, for the next few days, my absolutely amazing friend, Prags from The Inkedin Book Blog (who, really, put all of this together) and I will be sharing various essays by desi book people – bloggers, bookstagrammers, twitterati etc for you guys.

I hope that you learn something new by reading what we have in store for you here and that you enjoy it. Thank you for stopping by!

On #DesiRepDiscussions today, we have Enna, who is going to talk about the existing rep in books. What authors got right, what they didn't, what she liked and didn't. So, gear up and have fun!

Growing up, Desi representation was something I rarely saw or read in Young Adult novels. No matter how much I loved reading about characters from other cultures and backgrounds, I always felt sad I could never relate to a character myself on that level. And when I did find books that had Desi representation, there were some things I loved about them and some I was really disappointed by.

What I Liked

• The amount of detail some book had for describing Desi culture! I loved how our traditions and cultural values were expressed and represented for the world to read!
• I really appreciated the amount of diversity I saw in the characters themselves! I loved to read about individuals who were Desi but were not represented by the stereotype we often saw on TV or in movies (i.e., heavy accents, taxi driver etc..)
• Most importantly, I loved when characters need to discuss issues or topics that constantly challenged their beliefs and moral obligations (in regard to their culture); it illustrated how different each character was without taking away from their individuality.

What Could Have Been Better

• The need for diverse books is great, but I wish they did not revolve around overused tropes or stereotypes, like arranged marriages. There is so much potential authors can tap into when writing about Desi culture, but to use tropes and stereotypes as the focus of the book’s plot is disappointing. I would love to see something different.
• I would love to see Desi characters in more fantasy or sci-fi novels! While there are many contemporary novels and some fantasy novels written by Desi authors which represent Desi culture, it’s rare to find the same in sci-fi novels. I would love to see the same representation across multiple genres.

Before you go, here are some of my favorite Desi YA novels written by some amazing Desi authors and a few highly anticipated novels of 2018!

Top Row (Left to Right)

The Wrath & The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

From Twinkle With Love by Sandhya Menon

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon (coming 2018)

A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena (coming 2018)

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Bottom Row (Left to Right)

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

My So-Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma (coming 2018)

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier

The Library of Fates by Aditi Khorana

Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona

Connect With The Author:

Twitter | Instagram | Blog

What do you think of the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement? 

Have you read any books/ watched movies that celebrate the Desi culture?

Do say hi to Enna ~ she'd love to hear from you!

Quirky, Earnest and Intensely Relatable // ARC Review: Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi

Title: Down and Across
Author: Arvin Ahmadi
Publication Date: February 6th 2018
Publisher: Viking Books (Penguin)
Part of a Series?: No, A Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Penguin Random House International (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon US || Barnes and Noble || The Book Depository || Wordery || Kobo || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books

Blurb Description: Scott Ferdowsi has a track record of quitting. Writing the Great American Novel? Three chapters. His summer internship? One week. His best friends know exactly what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but Scott can hardly commit to a breakfast cereal, let alone a passion.
With college applications looming, Scott's parents pressure him to get serious and settle on a career path like engineering or medicine. Desperate for help, he sneaks off to Washington, DC, to seek guidance from a famous professor who specializes in grit, the psychology of success.
He never expects an adventure to unfold out of what was supposed to be a one-day visit. But that's what Scott gets when he meets Fiora Buchanan, a ballsy college student whose life ambition is to write crossword puzzles. When the bicycle she lends him gets Scott into a high-speed chase, he knows he's in for the ride of his life. Soon, Scott finds himself sneaking into bars, attempting to pick up girls at the National Zoo, and even giving the crossword thing a try--all while opening his eyes to fundamental truths about who he is and who he wants to be.

Arvin Ahmadi’s debut novel is one of those book that you INSTANTLY feel intrigued by. An Iranian American boy on the search for grit, leaves home and finds himself on an epic adventure and, also, there were also crosswords involved? YES, THANK YOU!

Can we also talk about what an ABSOLUTELY LOVELY COVER Down and Across has because AAH. It so simple and understated and also incorporated a map of DC where the book is set as well as the crossword theme of the book. BEAUTIFUL.

Let’s break this down:

1.       Down and Across is a BEAUTIFUL coming of age novel. The main character is a sixteen year old Iranian American, Scott Ferdowsi, who fears that his inability to commit will be his downfall. So he leaves home and an internship filled with rat poop to go to Washington DC and meet a professor who specialises in Grit.

2.       I LOVED the way this book was structured. There was a whimsical way by which Scott survived in DC, from day to day and week to week in the hostel, went after what he wanted from the professor and I LOVED Trent, his gay aspiring politician friend and his PURE HEART.

3.       Arvin Ahmadi really takes you into the mind of a sixteen year old teenage boy and he accurately captures the anxieties of growing up and not knowing what it is you want out of life. It was a sharp, honest take on life and the future and finding yourself and EXACTLY what I needed in the moment.

4.       My feelings about Fiora Buchanan are SO MUDDLED. She was a nice enough girl in the beginning and then her Manic Pixie Dream Girl side came out (and have I mentioned how MUCH I absolutely hate that trope?) and I wasn’t sure how I felt at all about her. She confused me, and I honestly feel like she could have been a better developed character.

5.       Another thing I simply couldn’t shake was how BAD I felt for Scott’s parents and what a horrible son he was being. I’m Indian, with overbearing parents (who I love like there’s no tomorrow) so while I understood the PRESSURES that he felt, I also hated the way he treated them. I cannot stand lying to my parents about where I am and running away for a MONTH at SIXTEEN with no respect for his parents sort of spoilt my whole experience. I get why the storyline needed it, but it doesn’t have to mean that I liked it.

6.       There was also a Crossword at the end of the book based on happenings in the book for the reader to solve and I LOVED that Down and Across had this unique feature and I loved solving it.

7. I loved the way the racist, bigot Jeanette was dealt with in this book. It gave me INTENSE pride when Scott/ Saaket told her off because her and people like her DESERVE it. 

Down and Across is quirky and charming, earnest, funny and INTENSELY relatable and a debut novel from a new voice in YA fiction to watch out for. 4 stars. 

Arvin Ahmadi grew up outside Washington, DC. He graduated from Columbia University and has worked in the tech industry. When he’s not reading or writing books, he can be found watching late-night talk show interviews and editing Wikipedia pages. Down and Across is his first novel.

You can follow Arvin on Twitter @arvinahmadi.

What are some of your most anticipated books of the year?
What are some of the diverse books you have on your radar?
Have you had the chance to read Down and Across already? What did you think of it?

 

An Exploratory Novel with Intense Writing // REVIEW: All The Dirty Parts by Daniel Handler

Title: All The Dirty Parts
Author: Daniel Handler
Publication Date: August 29th 2017
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Part of a Series?: No, A Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Bloomsbury India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Barnes and Noble || The Book Depository || Wordery || Flipkart || Infibeam || Foyles || Waterstones || WHSmith || Kobo || Chapters Indigo || Google Books

Blurb Description: Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) delivers the eagerly anticipated companion piece to his award-winning bestseller Why We Broke Up--a gutsy, exciting novel that looks honestly at the erotic lives and impulses of an all-too-typical young man.
Cole is a boy in high school. He runs cross country, he sketches in a sketchbook, he jokes around with friends. But none of this quite matters, next to the allure of sex. "Let me put it this way,†? he says, "Draw a number line, with zero is, you never think about sex, and ten is, it's all you think about, and while you are drawing the line, I am thinking about sex.†?
Cole fantasizes about whomever he's looking at. He consumes and shares pornography. And he sleeps with a lot of girls--girls who seem to enjoy it at the time and seem to feel bad about it afterwards. Cole is getting a reputation around school--a not quite savory one--which leaves him adrift and hanging out with his best friend. Which is when something startling begins to happen between them--another kind of adventure, unexpected and hot, that might be what he's been after all this time. And then he meets Grisaille.
A companion piece to Handler's Why We Broke Up, the bestselling Michael J. Printz Honor novel, All The Dirty Parts is an unblinking take on the varied and ribald world of teenage desire in a culture of unrelenting explicitness and shunted communication, where queer can be as fluid as consent, where sex feels like love, but no one knows what love feels like. Structured in short chapters recalling Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation or Mary Robison's Why Did I Ever, the novel gives us a tender, brutal, funny, and always intoxicating portrait of an age in which the whole world is tilted through the lens of sex. "There are love stories galore,†? Cole tells us, "and we all know them. This isn't that. The story I'm typing is all the dirty parts.†?

The minute I read the synopsis of this book, I was intrigued, to say the very least. I’ve always thought that the more knowledge adolescents have about sex, the more informed decisions they can make about any matter relating to it.

Which is to say, I went into this expecting it to be something GOOD. I finished the entire book in little more than an hour and, at this point, I’M HONESTLY NOT SURE HOW TO REVIEW THIS BOOK AT ALL.

It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever read before and like the description promises, it was purely about sex, from the mind of a ‘horny’ teenager talking only about ‘All The Dirty Parts’ in a cut prose.

MY THOUGHTS:

1.       Despite the fact that the description of this book PROMISES that this isn’t a love story of any sort, and that it only contains all the dirty parts, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that I wanted something MORE from the main character in terms of character and development.

2.       I guess I didn’t want a love story, per se, but I wanted a little more of a STORY instead of just descriptions of sex.

3.       I really liked Daniel Handler’s writing style. I’ve seen Lemony Snicket on TV with family, but I haven’t actually read any of his books. It was definitely an interesting style of writing with broken, cut away prose that reads SOMEWHAT like verse, but isn’t. The writing DEFINITELY suited the plot of the book, and that made my reading experience that much better.

4.       The descriptions in this book were all kinds of crazy. At first, I was a little shocked at how graphic everything about this book was but I got over that. There was also a lot of diversity in terms of same sex relationships and a lot of experimentation which I really liked.

5.       Despite the fact that there WAS a same sex relationship, I absolutely HATED the way Cole treated his best friend. He honestly acted like a Grade A Dirtbag and I felt horrible for him.

6.       ALSO, CAN I HONESTLY TALK ABOUT HOW COLE’S MONOLOGUES AT THE ENDING CONFUSED ME? Because they did, and I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF HIM.

I HAVE to give this book points for Originality and while it stayed true to its title and description I can’t help but with that there was a little more to Cole as a character. 3 stars. 

Daniel Handler is the author of the novels The Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth, Adverbs and, most recently, the Michael J. Printz Honor-winning Why We Broke Up, a collaboration with noted illustrator Maira Kalman. He also worked with Kalman on the book Girls Standing on Lawns and Hurry Up and Wait (May 2015). Under the name Lemony Snicket he has written the best-selling books series All The Wrong Questions as well as A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has sold more than 60 million copies and was the basis of a feature film. Snicket is also the creator of several picture books, including the Charlotte Zolotow Award-winning The Dark, illustrated by Jon Klassen. His newest picture book is 29 Myths on the Swinster Pharmacy illustrated by Lisa Brown.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Handler attended Wesleyan University and returned to his hometown after graduating. He co-founded the magazine American Chickens! with illustrator Lisa Brown (with whom he soon became smitten), and they moved to New York City, where Handler eventually sold his first novel after working as a book and film critic for several newspapers. He continued to write, and he and his wife returned to San Francisco, where they now live with their son.

Have you read any of Daniel Handler's books? What did you think of them? 

Which one is your favourite?

Have you by any chance read All The Dirty Parts? What do you think of it?

A Stigma Breaker // REVIEW: You Don't Know Me But I Know You by Rebecca Barrow

Title: You Don't Know Me But I Know You
Author: Rebecca Barrow
Publication Date: August 19th 2017
Publisher: Harper Teen
Part of a Series?: No, A Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Harper Collins India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Amazon US || Barnes and Noble || The Book Depository || Wordery || Kobo || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books || Flipkart || Snapdeal || Foyles || Waterstones || WHSmith || 

Blurb Description: Rebecca Barrow’s bright, honest debut novel about chance, choice, and unconditional love is a heartfelt testament to creating the future you truly want, one puzzle piece at a time.
There’s a box in the back of Audrey’s closet that she rarely thinks about.
Inside is a letter, seventeen years old, from a mother she’s never met, handed to her by the woman she’s called Mom her whole life. Being adopted, though, is just one piece in the puzzle of Audrey’s life—the picture painstakingly put together by Audrey herself, full of all the people and pursuits that make her who she is.
But when Audrey realizes that she’s pregnant, she feels something—a tightly sealed box in the closet corners of her heart—crack open, spilling her dormant fears and unanswered questions all over the life she loves.
Almost two decades ago, a girl in Audrey’s situation made a choice, one that started Audrey’s entire story. Now Audrey is paralyzed by her own what-ifs and terrified by the distance she feels growing between her and her best friend Rose. Down every possible path is a different unfamiliar version of her life, and as she weighs the options in her mind, she starts to wonder—what does it even mean to be Audrey Spencer?

Read the Guest Post Rebecca Barrow did on my blog here!

I did something really surprising: I actually read reviews BEFORE I started reading this review copy, which is something I almost never do. This is because doing so might leave me with expectations or biases, and the point of reviewing a book is to go in without preconceived notions.*

*Yes, I do feel smart having used the term preconceived notions.

I should PROBABLY come to my point, which is: I expected You Don’t Know Me But I Know You to be something slow paced and heart breaking from the reviews I read, and I was pacing myself for a really slow paced book but Rebecca Barrow’s debut novel wasn’t like that AT ALL.

In fact, it took quite a quick pace and it wasn’t the tragic book I was expecting, but something else altogether.

You Don’t Know Me But I Know You broke down so many tropes when it came to teenagers around friendship, sex, pregnancy and first loves and yet at the same time, had a lot of unnecessary drama popping up, and filled with rant-y monologues and resulted in me being SO CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT I FELT ABOUT THIS BOOK.

Let’s break this down:

1.       I loved how this book deconstructed tropes. It shows teenagers that UNLIKE most conceptions, their parents could support them in having safe sex, won’t kick them out of the house if they get pregnant and also that teen pregnancies don’t always end in the father bailing and the mother being saddled with ever decision. It is SO IMPORTANT to read books where teenagers are treated like adults, because it’s what we crave and EQUALLY IMPORTANT to see supportive parents and boyfriends in fiction just like Rebecca Barrow’s debut showed us.

2.       I also really liked the relationship dynamic between Audrey and her boyfriend, Julian. They had such this open, honest way of communicating to one another about their dreams and worries and most importantly, about the baby.

3.       This book was so adoption positive and I LOVED that about it. I feel like we don’t see enough books that show up adoption when the child knows all along instead of adoption being a huge plot twist, and this was a welcome chance.

4.       Like I said at the beginning of this review, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that all the problems in this book were just plot twists that were filled with UNNECESSARY DRAMA and I just didn’t understand it. Audrey’s relationship with her best friend, Rose was horrible portrayed and all their miscommunication made me cringe. I DIDN’T EVEN REALLY GET WHAT THEY WERE FIGHTING ABOUT and I wanted to shake some SERIOUS sense into them.

5.       I also initially liked the female friendships in the book but they became filler VERY FAST. I hated the way Audrey treated Maria, Jen, Rose and Olivia. She put herself first, made everything about her and there was NO ROOM for anything else and that isn’t friendship in my book.

This book could have been so much better. It had some really promising elements and broke a lot of tropes but there was SO MUCH UNNEEDED DRAMA. 3 stars. 

Rebecca Barrow writes stories about girls and all the wonders they can be. A lipstick obsessive with the ability to quote the entirety of Mean Girls, she lives in England, where it rains a considerable amount more than in the fictional worlds of her characters. She collects tattoos, cats, and more books than she could ever possibly read. YOU DON'T KNOW ME BUT I KNOW YOU is her first novel.

Website || Twitter || Instagram || Goodreads

Who are some of your top romantic couples in YA?

Have you read Rebecca's debut novel? What did you think of it?

I can't wait to see who all of you pick!