Review: Turtles All The Way Down – A Must Read

Books that talk of mental illness have a special place in my heart. I cannot really say why, but books like Perks of Being a Wallflower, Norwegian Woods and now Turtles all the Way Down will probably always be on the ‘books I can read over and over again’ shelf.

Turtles All The Way Down, the latest by John Green was a brilliant read and a bloody fast one too. But before everything else, here’s a confession that I need to make: I have never read a John Green book before. So I won’t be able to tell you how the book compares with the other ones.

Turtles is the story of Aza, a girl carefully named for her father wanted her name to cover all the alphabets. Like most young adults, she has a best friend, Daisy, and a crazy love story going on in the background. Her love story with Davis Pickett has a mystery angle to it as well, in which Aza and Daisy go on to look for a runaway billionaire which has a promise to make them rich. All these stories run in the background of the central theme: Anxiety.

The book has an overall philosophical tone to it, which gets a little over-the-top sometimes. But otherwise when you’re done with reading and you lie on the bed thinking, it all makes sense. This is a book that makes you wanna think, really.

Among the many reasons as to why you should read th book, the prime one that strikes me is this : the characters are real. The people in the book are so real you’d think you could really meet one of them in real life. For instance, Aza has a car named ‘Harold’. Yes she has named it and she has a relationship with the car as if it were a person. Her emotions with the object are real. We all know at least one person who has real relationships with objects.

Another thing that’s commendable about the book is John Green’s knowledge about other things. Animals, stars, medicine, tech and so many other things. It is amazing to read so many new things.

This is a book you shouldn’t give a miss. It is a must read. Young or adult.

Oh and, the cover is beautiful.

Book: Turtles All The Way Down
Author: John Green
Publisher: Penguin Random House, UK
Pages: 286 (Hardcover)
Rating: 4.5/5

Book Lover’s Struggle No. 1

Who hasn’t faced THIS? Every person who loved reading has faced this never-ending struggle of wanting to read soooo many books, but alas, life gives us only 24 hours in a day and a person gotta earn! Damn Capitalism!

Designed by crafts.delhi

I am working on a Thursday series that shows the struggles of a book lover. And the struggle is real! Share yours, so I can try and illustrate them.

 

It Is So Hard For Me To Read Non-Fiction. Help!

A new year is here and I am absolutely glad that I am entering this year loaded with books to read. I have on my list four Man Booker awardees, namely, The Underground Railroad , Lincoln in the Bardo, A Horse Walks Into A Bar and The Sellout. These books will take about two months to finish. So yeah, I’m sorted for the beginning of the year.

What I am sad about and want to change in the year 2018, is that my shelves are loaded with fictions. If you go through my Goodreads, you’d see a variety of fiction novels. But alas, I have not read one non-fiction. It is so very difficult for me to read a non-fiction. Why, you ask?

Consider this. I really wanted to know about the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. And I have an absolutely amazing book, The Siege: The Attack on Taj by Adrian Levy, sitting on my bookshelf (my husband’s actually). I picked that book up. The author starts with the names of all the real people in the attack. After the list, he starts telling us about a father-daughter duo who worked at the Taj. A real father-daughter duo. And that was it. I couldn’t read further. I knew that either one of them was going to die, or rather all the people on the list. Yes, characters die in fiction, but fictional characters. Not real people!! Do you understand? I cannot live with the idea that all the people who suffered in the book suffered for real. Their pain was real, their losses were real.

GIF source- giphy

My eyes welled up when I realised that the father-daughter duo would either die or get separated for life. And I couldn’t take it anymore. This is the reason I cannot read non-fiction. I get too attached to the people. So I need your help here.
I really want to read all the lovely books out there, but what is it that I am doing wrong? Am I picking the wrong books for the start? Am I reading it wrong? Or what is it?

Do you have some tricks or tips under your sleeve that can help me read better without crying a river?

Help!

The Amazing Reading Challenge: Book Bingo

We all set goals to read a certain number of books each year, and some of my more ambitious friends set one for each month. Some other like me get lost about what to read next and appreciate a challenge now and then to help us catch on reading habits. So here’s a challenge I thought would really help one read.

You must all have played bingo. Remember those 5×5 boxes with random numbers with the goal of the game was to finish one line?

So I found a book bingo on Goodreads and another one on the Penguin website. But they were not  made for the Indian audience. So I designed my own! Yay!

The rules are real simple. Let me run you through them:

1. Pick a line of five squares. It can be vertical, horizontal and/or diagonal.
2. Each book you read can fill only one square. No two squares can have the same book.
3. Tick the boxes off as you finish reading the book and you can write the name of the book as you finish, just to keep a track.
4. Celebrate your win!

Here’s the bingo for you to download and print.

Usually, this game is played in a library. But like me, you can play this with your friends. What I am currently playing with my friends is this; we have all decided to race to complete one line. And whoever completes the line first gets a book from each of the other players. Fun no? And when one line is done and one person has won, you can print a new box and start all over again. This time picking a different set of books for the same line or you can try a different line altogether. Trust me, it is going to be so much fun!

So till now, I have only completed an autobiography – Lone Fox Dancing (Ruskin Bond), which I think I will put under ‘Indian Author’ so as to complete the second last horizontal line. And am currently reading the Schindler’s List, which I think I will put under ‘Based on True Story’. But, let’s see.

This is a great opportunity to find new books to read, and explore new genres. I had never read an autobiography, but looks like I really liked it. So I will try reading more of them. And I also have ‘Open by Andre Agassi’ in my mind. The book looks promising. And them probably I will dwell into ‘A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway’.

So go on people, get reading with your book club, friends, make it a family feud or just play by yourself. The idea is to keep reading and getting to know more characters. 🙂

Happy reading.
Do tell me if you downloaded it and are playing it. Also, share your completed bingo with me.

Show me some love!