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I come from a lower middle class family from an extremely small town in the state of West Bengal. My family is Bengali, and by taking the risk of sounding stereotypical, I would say that most Bengalis are stringent individuals. Stringent in almost everything, with the exception of afternoon naps and Sunday lunch of course! To see a Bengali wealthy middle aged man riding a bicycle and wearing crumpled clothes is a common sight in most parts of West Bengal. Now coming back to my non wealthy, pay check to pay check living family. We never had enough of anything while growing up. My father was the only salaried person in a family of four. The salary was just enough to pay the rent for our 400sqft room, our school fees, and the once a year trip to Sundarbans to see my grandparents in the third class compartment of the Indian railways. All other expenses were pretty much carried forward to the next month’s credit and eventually in a never ending spiral of small debts that my mother and father struggled with, till me and my sister finished college. I was in such a rush to grow up and get a job that it felt like an eternity to finally turn 18 and be able to get a real paying job! I started off as a receptionist in a car dealership in my town, and they paid me Rupees 3500 a month, in lieu of 9 hours of sitting at the reception desk. I had a telephone, a table fan, and a notebook of potential customers who could afford an 8lakhs rupees car. The glass walls of the showroom made it quite hot inside and the fan provided some relief from that, in exchange of some humidity. I would spend 300 rupees monthly in the shared auto to commute between home and the dealership. Lunch was free though. My goal was to save 3000 rupees every month, which would give 36000 rupees at the end of one year, which was a hell lot of money for an 18 year old at that time! I lasted less than six months there. But I continued working nevertheless, with other small companies, and giving tuitions to school kids, after work to make some more extra income. All my school mates were either in engineering or medical schools, and it did suck at times thinking of the alternative life I could have had if only we had some more money. I have been working since I was 18, never taking a break from earning a livelihood, and perhaps that is why I always end up debating a hundred times in my head to decide the worth of even a spend as little as Rs10. While flying, I have had colleagues who would spend Rs 5000 just for the entry to a nightclub in Delhi, and I would ask myself that how could I spend an amount worth my father’s one month salary, for just a few hours of pleasure! The answer was always a loud and clear NO. I am in my early 30s now, and have been blessed with better times. I make a decent living and am able to support my parents in ways that I could not have imagined even ten years ago! And guess what, I still have the same debate in my head every single time I go out, I decide to spend, I decide to treat myself. And this is just the financial debate! I have debates in my head even when it comes to spending leisure time doing absolutely nothing! Like why am I sitting without doing anything! Like every hour of the day has to be filled with some work, some activity, productive or otherwise! Don’t even get me started on the idea of splurging in luxury shopping or foreign holidays in once in a blue moon! I don’t have to tell you that I have never done the former, and the few times I did do the latter, I have been extremely detailed in my expense planning and kept my guard on for any kind of impulse expense. Nope, not under my watch! If you have had an upbringing such as mine, you would probably relate to my monologue here. As I sit in this humungous food court in a giant mall in one of the many suburbs of Dubai, sipping my karak chai, doing absolutely nothing other than leisurely engaging with my thoughts, I couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty of being unproductive, which funnily in turn made me open my notes in my cellphone and start writing this monologue! On another note, I would like to know if it was your guilt ridden pleasure that led you to engage in reading this blog, or you are the evolved being that understands that pleasure is imperative to living, if not to surviving? I am curious! Yours Jay

2023 so far has been kind of slow in terms of reading! Majorly because, I am trying to be a bit more organized with my limited days off. I am focusing on other things, writing being obviously one of them, spending more time in self care is another one! My manifestation of self-care has come down to the simplest things these days. For example, being content with the present, and dance every now and then in the rain! Rhetorically of course. Reading has become one of those acts of self care, instead of a relentless marathon. Now back to the book… The story is kind of a memoir of an English woman's experience of being a part of an Arab Sheikh’s family. Patricia Holtron is like a mother to the two sons of an Arab Sheikh who wanted his sons to study in London. Patricia’s husband and the Sheikh had business relations and through that Patricia is introduced to the two boys and takes this unprecedented almost life long role of like a mother to them. Through her eyes, she has painted a very detailed picture of how it was to be associated so closely to an Arab family, one of the prominent Sheikhs of Al Ain. She describes about her many trips from London to Al Ain in details, including the elaborate and beautiful hospitality of the Sheikh’s family. She dives into details about her role in the growing up of the two boys spread over a decade or so. She has given a closer view to the many details of an Arab household as big and influential as the Sheikh’s, including the Shekiha’s role in it. The Hareem, an assembly of only the females of the clan, is described beautifully and its imperative importance in the families. Holtron takes the reader through an entire journey of more than a decade, while sharing the smallest details of how intertwined their lives were with her own own. Family celebrations, marriages, relocations, even health crisis have been penned down to the smallest details by Holtron, giving the reader an extremely holistic perspective of the Arab Culture, more importantly, of that particular family’s traditions to the reader. The book has a very different body, compared to most of the memoirs that I have read so far. It could be like a travelogue may be, except that it’s majorly focused on her travels to the UAE. Even though the author shares uncountable stories of her experiences with different aspects of the Arab culture, it doesn’t feel as personal or as raw as how memoirs usually are. In fact that’s what makes them so real and beautiful and appealing. The writing feels a little bit biased as it captures majorly the good parts of her travel. It feels like a very rosy picture, and that’s a bit unreal for me! But also, perhaps it was indeed just as rosy as the author painted it. Perhaps that’s why it seems extremely unrelatable too, and a bit impersonal as well. Or, May be it’s just my reading interests that crave for brutally honest accounts of life stories, or travelogues, where the ugly part is given as much spot light as the good part! On the other hand, The writing is easy to understand. It is one of qualities of the native English writers that hugely appeals to me. I guess it does makes a difference when one’s story is written in the person’s first language, rather than someone like me who learnt the language as a second language. And, If I ever come across any fiction written by her, I would perhaps give it a read, and give myself a chance to change my mind about Holtron’s books. I would rate this memoir/travelogue 3.5/10.

Why do I say things I don’t always mean? There is this constant struggle inside me with me, between who I am and who I wanna be. I don’t mean that I don’t like myself, on the contrary I love myself, in fact I adore myself. But the real question is do I adore myself with all my weaknesses and flaws or am I in love with the version of me that I think I am, flawless, superior, perfect? Being honest to myself, brings clarity about who I am, but why I am that I am, that question remains unanswered. Chennai is a big city, and by the looks of it, it looks inviting and beautiful too, not in the conventional way, like New York, or Singapore, or Tokyo, but in its own twisted ways. I would like to spend some more time in this city. May be some of my questions will be answered, who knows. Or maybe they won’t. But it won’t matter. Because places are meant to be experienced. And experiences make one grow. And city by city, town by town, lanes by roads, airports by stations, I would be growing, as I am now, as I finish my short date with Chennai and prepare to fly back to Dubai, my home for now. So, I came back to this mega city, to find answers to the same old question. I went out for long walks into the city. There was so much dust, pot holes, lack of footpaths, sweat, traffic, crowd, high risers, constructions, and a thousand things more, but my answers seemed to be nowhere. Before making it back to my comfortable layover room in a 4star hotel, I treated myself with a filter coffee (indigenous to this part of the country). Because why not? Small pleasures like this one often makes up for the lack of answers in life. The cool breeze felt good in the aftermath of sweat and heat. Back in my room, I changed into my fav outfit, my pajamas and I settled down in my favourite part of the hotel room, the oh so comfy bed! Scrolling between my personal photography and the ones in the social media, I came across this small bit of snippet from an Indian movie. The movie was almost a decade old, and I remembered watching it with a long-lost friend in my initial days in Dubai. The short was about the relationship that an adult has with her parents. The question was “why are you being a mother to your 70-year-old father?” To which the female replies, “after an age, it’s the responsibility of the daughter or son, to keep their older parents alive, because after an age, their will to live kind of stops (for Indian parents at least who sacrifice every fiber of their being to raise their kids)!” And that hit home! Even though I was far from finding the answer to the question that was softly haunting me for weeks now, I did stumble upon another answer of a question I often asked myself. Why did it feel like that I was baby-sitting my ageing parents all the time? And there was the answer! That was why! The saying, that travel answers many of life questions, is not false after all! They may be not the answers you might be looking for right now, but nevertheless they are the answers! Answers that might bring one, a step closer to knowing and understanding themselves a bit more! That, for me is fascinating! And to clarify here a bit more, travel doesn’t have to be expensive, or heavy, or far away. It could just might be as simple as taking a different route to home from college, or from work, or trying out a new place to eat, or pursuing that hobby more that requires your visit to the outsides more! Renouncing comfort zones do open up new possibilities, and these possibilities are often hideouts of those small little nudging answers whose absence don’t make the world stop, but whose presence makes the mind a bit more reassured of who it actually is! Until another answer!

The perks of living alone are many! Apart from having the whole bed to yourself, not having to have any routine, and no chores debate (where we talk for and against on who should do what chore and why), I got my hands on some good amount of free time! Believe it or not, spouses do keep each other busy, and when one is out on a visit to his ancestral home, I got myself hella time. So, if I wasn’t on duty, or cooking, or cleaning, or doing the laundry, I was snacking and chilling with Netflix! I binged watched so much in the past thirty days, that I can confidently say that one doesn’t necessarily need another human being to ‘Netflix and Chill’. This art of binge watching is equally delightful in the company of the self, in PJs, a few packets of Lays, and a comfy blankie. And while I was indulging in some ‘me-time’, by binge watching the shit out of Netflix, I playfully stumbled upon this warm, soft, entertaining piece of series called ‘Never Have I ever’. Now to be honest, I have seen the craze over this series a couple of years ago, and how it was making news for its popularity among the teens, especially perhaps Indian, and American, and how the cute charismatic lead Maitreyi Ramakrishnan was giving interviews in popular American talk shows about her playing the lead role in it, but I didn’t buy it! Especially after my disappointment about ‘Money Heist’. I actually learnt a valuable lesson, that Hype is not necessarily equal to good content. So, I had my reservations against this bouncy little teen series, that, until I watched the first episode, and then I got gleefully hooked onto it! I won’t give a synopsis here for obvious reason (the trailer is available in the IMDB, and Netflix app). There is a lot of Indianness in the series as it features an Indian-American family drama. If you like sitcoms, with just the right amount of Indian drama in it, but hate the monotony of Bollywood bullshit, then this series could be for you! The cast is an interesting mix of colours, age, and pretty good actors (except some, of course). Watch out for the lovely Poorna Jagannathan (from Delhi Belly). One of the creators is Mindy Kaling (from The Office), and if you have seen it, you know what I am talking about! I won’t bore you with my writing anymore here, and frankly won’t be surprised if you jump into checking out this entertaining American teen sitcom (I would be surprised if you don’t!). Happy Watching!

The word ‘happy’ is overrated! It has been used way too many times than it has been meant! Call me a ‘negative Nancy’, but a more practical form of adjective would be helpful, especially when the new year is not the ‘happy’ that everyone wished me for. Of course, not people’s fault if the first nine days of 2023 hasn’t been the ideal new year days! What is an ideal start to a new year anyway? Being with family, have dinners together, go for joy rides on weekends with them, if you are working then having them at home when you come back after a long day or a long night, if you fall sick then they are there to make you some hot porridge, or rub hot oil on your hair and feet. So, if you think absence of all the above things make for a miserable new year’s week, then you get me! Last year, this time, I was practically jobless! I had all the time in the world, I had my family around, I went for long drives with them, we had dinners outside, and picnics by the water. It was an absolute perfect start of the year 2022, except for the fact that I was desperate to get back into making money! This year the tables have turned completely! The only thing I have is my hollow, over glamorized job! I am back to the toxic corporate work environment which I fantasized leaving around two years ago! Guess human beings are greedy, and the grass always looks greener on the other side! To tell you all the truth, I have been sick this past couple of days, and turns out sickness makes you really depressed, especially if you are all alone while being sick! Negative energies swirl around you and in your head, and it takes double the amount of push from the mind to make an effort to get better, to feel better! After about four days of antibiotics, vapour rub, and take out soups, my dopamine levels have finally come back to its original strength, and are still working hard to multiply themselves! Also, I have realised, being depressed made me a mean person! Every small inconvenience made me lose my shit, and I had small breakdowns with my loved ones, which in retrospect was mean of me! The whole purpose of me writing this monologue was to share a tiny piece of my personal life with you, with the hope that it might be a bit relatable to you! And also, I guess, to make peace with the fact that its okay if the new year did not start happy, like I expected it to be. I got a long year ahead, and I am sure there are pockets of happiness spread throughout the year which will easily compensate for the crappy days! Yin and Yang!

It’s Christmas Eve tonight! One more cycle completes, almost. One would think that after ten years of staying away from family during festivities, spending them in faraway lands, lonely hotel rooms, all by oneself, one might get used to being alone during these times, but boy am I wrong in assuming that I have mastered the skill of being all my myself? Sitting in the mall, sipping my Karak chai tea all by myself, while watching couples, families, friends, school kids, every single one of them is blessed with the company of a loved one in this particular night, I am guessing I am far from becoming the cold, aloof, solitude loving person that I pretend so hard to be. It’s always nice to be around loved ones. Isn’t it? As I ponder on my observations about myself relative to my surroundings, I am warmly reminded of my good times this evening last year, when I had the good fortune to be with my families. I hope I didn’t take those times for granted and made the most of it! Or may be, I did, just a little. Little enough to make me feel that what I had last year this time was invaluable. We all went to my small town’s only church, and saw it glittering with a thousand tiny lights. I am an atheist and probably the last person to pray, but it was serene to watch my mom, dad and husband pray, for whatever reasons they did. People singing songs, and having bonfires! It was one of the very few times when I really enjoyed being in my small town, Shibmandir. As much as I long for those times to come back, I cannot overlook the blessings that I gained these year! Sitting alone tonight, I feel grateful for being able to get back to making a living, take care of my parents, and while doing so see some of the amazing places of the world! Counting more blessings than ever!

Never in the past decades have I felt time running away so fast! The older I am getting, I more I realize that time is slipping faster than ever from between my fingers. Seeing parents getting older, and siblings welcoming their own grey hair days with a mixture of emotions, I can only recall the horror on my own face when I saw my very own first grey hair strand this year! (I mercilessly plucked it out and the horrified incident stopped any more of them from popping up). This year has also been a very dynamic one, in terms of career, relationships, and decision making! As promised myself, I have finished reading 12 books, one for each month. Reviewed 11 of them, and wrote an extra few words here and there in the name of blogging. Partly disappointed in myself for obviously not being able to write as much as I would have liked to. A relatively big gap of fifteen months in my flying, because of covid restrictions, I was able to invest some good time in my relationships. Initially started with having more and more time for my husband, who always complained of my frequent layover flights ( I complained about them too). We spent days in pursuing our interests, mine in fiction writing and his in investments. I napped so much that I finally caught up with all the pending sleep and the jet lags I have had for years perhaps! Evenings were mostly ‘home date nights’ with beers, pizza and movie marathons. I missed putting make up on my face so much that every now and then I would just dress up for no reason and would make my husband click photos of me while I posed in my classic mediocre poses! Not once did we complain about being locked down in the lock down. Our introvert asses loved every minute of it! Later during the following months, we both spent some time with our families. Mine in Siliguri and his in Trivandrum. It was blissful spending adulthood with parents. We have had our differences because of the obvious‘generation gap’, but we also had so many heart to heart chats, dinners together and finally after a decade or so I spent Durga puja, kali puja and Christmas with them! The rush to attain, distracted me from all these meaningful pleasures for years, and it was nice to finally take a back seat and just enjoy being with parents. Mom usually made breakfast, with dad occasionally taking over with his own specialties. Dinners used to be usually an amalgamation of my mediocre cooking in less oil and my parents’s extravagant Bengali dishes! After ten long years, the four of us including my younger sister who lives in a different state altogether, spent ten whole days together! I felt grateful. I resumed flying during the mid 2022, and all my free time was taken away by sleep. The travel industry resumed its operations with such a bang on, that I barely had time for anything else other than flying and sleeping. I missed my bounty of free time but also understood that every single thing in life came with its own price! Staying away from loved ones to make a few bucks was one of them. As much as I am grateful for being able to grind myself into making a living and living the dream, a teeny tiny part of me still kind of secretly wishes if things could partly go back to the way they were. The free times, chats with families, lots of reading and lots of writing, allowing no inhibitions when it came to imagination and its blending in with creativity, no jet lags, no feet pain, no accumulation of underlying stress, the lack of distance, etc, etc. But here I am! Greedy human! In a nutshell 2022 was like roller coaster ride, much like the 2020 I would say! For 2023, I have promised myself to pursue a relatively meaningful goal, where I chase the money less, and the fulfillment of creating something from scratch, more! I will still continue to fly as a flight attendant for obvious reasons (like paying the bills!). I plan specifically to read a little less than this year and ration my time into writing more. I have also started a side gig as an aviation educator, where I share my experience of being a flying attendant for almost 11 years with aviation aspirants! For those of you who have given me the honor our of their time and followed my work in social media, a grateful thank you to every single one of you for being a cheer leader of an amateur entrepreneur. To everyone of you who made it till this paragraph, thank you for reading this monologue with your valuable time. See you next year, bookworms!!

Author: Deborah Rodriguez Total pages: 375 Total approximate words: 93700 SYNOPSIS The story is set in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. It starts in a village in the mountain where a goon abducts a young Afghani woman Yasmina, from her uncle who could not pay of his debt on time. Helpless, the uncle unable to do much about it, watches her niece being taken way forcefully, with frustration and a heavy heart. He had to pay off the debt before the next summer, or else, the younger niece would be taken away by these goons too, and sold as a slave to some wealthy Arab. Yasmina, who was newly pregnant, and lost her husband in the ongoing war, was shaking with fear as the goons put her in the back seat of the SUV. She knew that if they found out that she was pregnanat, she would be of no use to them and therefore might kill her. She was scared for her unborn child. When one of them made an advance on her, he immediately found the small bump on her belly. Raged with anger, the goons decide to throw her away from the vehicle in the streets. Physically hurt, but relieved that her life was spared. She manages to find out the Women's Ministry, and there she meets Sunny. Sunny is an American woman who came to Kabul with her boyfriend. She owns and runs a coffee shop with Halajan, another Afghani woman, much older than Sunny and Bashir Hadi, an afghani man. She invites Yasmina to stay with her and work in her coffee shop. Yasmina, who is still shaking from all that has happened, agrees but keeps her pregnanacy a secret. Isabel, an English journalist, and Candace, an American, ex wife of a consular are regular visitors of the café, so is Jack, another American, and loads of other expatriates, and mercenaries. Isabel wants to find out the truth behind the drug peddling among young Afghan women and their disappearance, while Candace wants to help her new enigmatic Afghani boyfriend to raise money for his school of homeless boys. Despite the women having reservations against each other in the beginning, eventually become great friends, and support each other in their respective endeavors. Through many twists and turns in the story, surprising truths unfolds for each of the central characters towards the end. The plot concludes with Sunny planning to move back to America, after breaking up with her boyfriend, handing over the coffee shop to Halajan, who apparently had a secret lover, Yasmina giving birth to a baby girl, and getting married to Halajan’s son, and Candace planning to stay back in Kabul. Isabel loses her life in a tragic bombing in the pursuit of truth. REVIEW The story has an energetic and vibrant vibe. From the description of Kabul, to the descriptions of the different characters, the whole mood of the plot is very engaging. Rodriquez is a great story teller, and it is apparent from the many surprises that unfolds through out the plot. The writing is easy to understand, and the pace is just perfect for a relaxed read. The characterization is done intricately keeping in mind the differences of each one of them. I have thoroughly enjoyed the book, and would definitely wont mind reading this book again, or getting my hands on another book by Rodriguez! I would most certainly give this book a 8.5/10 rating, and I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did! Happy Reading!

Author: Paulo Coelho Total pages: 291 Total approximate words: 81400 Paulo Coelho is a story teller, probably one of the bests that the literary world has the pleasure of being associated with! He mixes all the different elements of storytelling together just in the right ratio, and the end product becomes a masterpiece like ‘ADULTERY’, or ‘THE SPY’, or ‘THE ELEVEN MINUTES’. SYNOPSIS Maria is a young girl from a small town in Brazil, who wanted to chase her dreams of living in a big city, meeting her prince charming and then marry him to live happily ever after. And so, she leaves her job in a local shop whose owner was madly in love with her, and sets off for Rio de Janeiro. While enjoying her new found freedom in Rio, she comes across a Swiss man who thought her to be very beautiful, and wanted to take her out for dinner in a fancy place, to which she agrees. During dinner the man offers her a job in Geneva with a very attractive salary. Not knowing what she was getting into, Maria agrees to the offer, thinking that all her dreams were finally going to come true. She lands into Geneva to find out that her new job role is that of a bar dancer in one of the most expensive clubs of Geneva. She also sees that she wasn’t the only Brazilian girl there who left her small town for the chase of the big cities. Her job role was to seduce the men in the club and then spend some more time in a hotel room after that with them. She was allowed to take 3 men per night and give part of her earnings to the bar owner, who facilitated the whole arrangement. Gradually Maria makes peace with her new role as a prostitute but she also promises herself that she will be in this like of work for only one year, just enough to save to buy a farm back home, and a one way ticket to brazil. During this one year, she meets many wealthy men who paid to be in her company for a few minutes, however there are two men in particular that she falls for. Ironically they both have very different definitions of love and Maria doesn’t seem to settle in her heart which one makes more sense than the other. At the end she chooses to leave both of them, but knowing which one of the two she really loved. She never confronts her love to him and rather as planned after the one year, she buys a ticket to get away from Switzerland once and for all. She gets a one night stop in Paris, and as fate would have it, the man that she really loved was waiting for her at the airport in Paris. Coelho leaves the story with Maria’s arrival in Paris without any final details about her actually getting into a flight to home in Brazil. REVIEW The plot is intricately detailed, so are the characters and the scenes. Each incident is patiently weaved into beautiful words, keeping in mind the characteristic details of not only the protagonist but also of the supporting characters. The pace is neither too fast nor too relaxed. Even though this book is a translated version of its original Portuguese form, the words used are fairly easy to understand and makes for an overall pleasant read. I am fan of Coelho’s work in general, except for The Alchemist (review here), and I would happily give this book a 8.5/10 rating! Happy reading!

Author: Emily Bronte Pages: 322 Total approximate words: 115900 To try and write the synopsis of a story that has survived two centuries is a bit of a dare. Its never-ending fame intrigued me, and that was the only reason that I picked it up from a book store in Dubai some four years ago. A regular job was standing on my way at that time for me to be able to read as much as I would like to. Thankfully, because of the pandemic, some of my wishes came true, and I finally picked up the book for the second time. SYNOPSIS Set in the nineteenth century, it’s an unconventional generational love story between two lovers who never get to be together, and die in anguish, spite and loneliness. There are many unexpected and disdainful circumstances that the story unfolds into. The plot revolves around its more than one protagonist, and takes the reader through a chain of distasteful events through the years that eventually ends into death, and a scandalous burial of the protagonists. The writing style is expectedly Victorian. It is not even remotely anything like the writings from the past 30-40 years. The pace is slow, narration is extremely detailed, and the characterization has more physical descriptions than psychological ones. A plethora of characters, weaving their lives and stories over two generations, makes it too extensive a read. A modern comparison of similar extensive storyline writing, could be Arundhati Roy’s Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Also, looking back, Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora. Did I like the Classic novel? Not as much. The pace of the story did not really keep me glued to the book. The plot was extremely unconventional, and so I enjoyed the idea that went into forming the entire characters, and storyline, and encouraged me as a writer to be bolder when imagining my own characters, but other than that, it was a slow ride! Would I read another Classic? I most certainly would! I would rate it a 6.5 out of 10. Happy Reading!

Author: Lauren Weisberger Total number of pages: 337 Total approximate words: 1,18,000 SYNOPSIS The protagonist is an underrated tennis player, and the plot is about her journey from being the world number 22 to the world number 2. The story unfolds cleverly not only into the physical hurdles of intense, long practice and fitness sessions, along with cut throat competitions, but also the many other aspects like rivalries with other top players, lack of a stable relationship, media frenzies, superficialities in the name of romance, and the non-stop self-sponsor travel all over the world for tournaments. The story also has homosexual characters which seamlessly fit into the main plot and add an extra oomph to its characterization. It is a straight forward story with unnecessary twists, and without excessive details. However, it justifiably takes the reader through the reasonable and not so boring details of the sport itself, which was integral to the entire story telling. Anymore details into the synopsis, I might as well tell you the story! Did I like reading it? Well of course, yes! The writing style is well paced. The character making is vivid to the point that I could actually hear the protagonist’s coach’s yelling as I read through the lines! I liked how the author portrayed the generally sensible human being and the selfish, vile and shallow ones through the different characters. I adored the story’s take on parenting, through the eyes of the protagonist’s father, and the mature relationship that a parent and a child are capable of forming between themselves. The Singles Game, was a quick read and between my flying schedule I finished the book in a week. Only because I enjoyed reading it! A 7.5 star rating out of 10 for this beautiful book. PS The author is also the writer of the book “The Devil Wears Prada”. That is ought to make you want to read this book. Happy Reading!

Author: Annie Groves Total Pages: 468 Total approximate words: 1,59,588 SYNOPSIS The story is set during the World War 2 in England. The plot revolves around three families who are directly/indirectly related to each other, and their everyday lives with the war going on. Katie is born in London to parents who were in the showbiz business, but seeing her parent’s bitter relationship towards each other, she decides never to fall in love or joining the same line of work. Fate however, has different plans for her. As she moves to Liverpool to start her new job, she inadvertently falls in love with Luke who is a soldier and has recently come back from Dunkirk. He also happened to be the son of Jean, whose house Katie was residing temporarily for her work. Jean, a loving mother and wife, is gleefully excited to see Katie and Luke together, however is worried for her twins, Lou and Sasha who wants to join the showbiz business as dancers. The twins inspired from their aunt Fran, who tours the world, performing as a lead dancer and singer for the most renowned theatrics of England, meets Kieran who works under his uncle Con who runs a theatre. Kieran promises the twins a big break to start their dancing career, and the twins unaware of the uncle and nephew’s dubious plans trust Kieran with his words. Con is married to Emily, however that doesn’t stop him from being a womaniser. Emily unable to bear her own child but is the inherent of substantial wealth from her father, puts up with Con despite knowing his disloyalty to her. Vi is Jean’s twin sister, however has the opposite personality. She is superficial, crass, and considered Jean’s family below hers. Her own son, also a soldier, is set to marry Daphne who hails from a wealthy family herself, on the pretext that he was to be honored with a war medal because of trying to save Daphne’s brother in the war. The truth however was far from it. Vi’s daughter Bella, recently widowed didn’t care about her brother or her mother, as much as she cared about her allowance from her father, and the house that she got from him as her wedding gift. The story ends, while the war still goes on, and the families continue living their lives while dealing with the shenanigans of their individual existence entangled with the common web of the war. Did I enjoy the read? To an extent I did enjoy how the story gradually unfolded into events of love and hate, and further how it developed the individual characters in terms of temperament. The pace of writing is relaxed, and the style is easy, making the whole reading a laid-back one. For someone in their mid to late teens might find the story more appealing, specifically because the portrayal of characters is not complex. For mature readers, this might be a quick weekend read if one is into ‘low key’ fiction books. This book is a step up from Enid Blyton books, if you know what I mean. A 5.5 star rating for this easy read! Happy Reading!